


Trust Issues

by MyOwnNarrative



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Betrayal, Blood and Violence, Galra Keith (Voltron), Heavy Angst, Latino Lance (Voltron), M/M, Nonbinary Pidge | Katie Holt, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Shiro (Voltron) Has PTSD - Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, oh god so much angst, probably, some fluff?, very vague use of ptsd
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-25
Updated: 2016-12-07
Packaged: 2018-08-10 21:48:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 15
Words: 31,798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7862404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MyOwnNarrative/pseuds/MyOwnNarrative
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Finally reunited after the mission to save Allura, and all of its complications, the paladins return to the castle to a strange surprise. At first, Keith only trusts Lance with his new secret, for reasons he can't quite place, but Lance convince's him to tell the others. As they deal with the reactions of their teammates and, eventually, obstacles in Keith's condition, things get complicated not just for the two of them, but the whole team.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Keith had been acting suspiciously ever since the rescue mission. Everyone else had shared stories of what had happened when they were all split up, everyone else had hugged each other, and a few people (okay, maybe only Hunk) had cried when they were reunited. But Keith had participated in none of it. He had found his way back to the Castle of Lions, waved a quick hello to everyone, and then disappeared into his room. He had been sighted occasionally in the few days that followed, but he even seemed to avoid eating dinner with the others. 

But, Lance had to admit that, without any doubt whatsoever, _this_ was the weirdest thing Keith had done yet. Lance was standing in the dining room of the castle, helping himself to a quick post-dinner snack of only the highest quality green goop, when Keith approached him, draped in the sheets from his bed.

“Lance,” he spoke in a hushed voice from behind the shadows of his makeshift cloak.

“Ah!” Lance jumped out of his skin before realizing that what was now in front of him was more humorous than anything else. “Keith, what-” His sentence broke off into a fit of giggles, which only prompted a low growl from Keith.

“Lance I need to talk to you.” Keith said, more urgently this time. 

Lance rolled his eyes, “Sure, right after I get a picture of this.” He laughed, fishing in his pockets for his phone. He didn’t have a chance to take his picture, though, because after an exasperated sigh from Keith, he was being dragged down the hall. The hand that was almost painfully clenched to his wrist was still carefully covered by the sheet. 

On their way to the sleeping quarters, they passed the entry to the living area, where a very bewildered Shiro raised an eyebrow in Lance’s direction. Lance just shrugged in response. Finally, Keith pushed Lance into his own room. The constant low hum of noise that came from Lance’s hand held radio somehow made the atmosphere infinitely less tense. When the paladins had found themselves stranded on Atlea, Lance had spent seemingly endless homesick hours fiddling with the out of service device. It didn’t take more than a week for Allura to notice something was wrong. Lance still joked that what she had done was witchcraft, but he was immensely grateful when she somehow got it to pick up some of earth’s radio waves. 

“Okay, what the hell is up with you?” Lance plopped himself down on the bed, and turned to see Keith, without the sheet. He took a solid moment just to contain himself. To do nothing but sit and take it in and, at all costs, not react. Keith was turning purple, his fingers were crooked and sharp, he had animal-like, purple ears poking from his unruly hair. It almost looked like he was turning Galra. “Oh,” Lance finally trusted himself to speak after a moment of painful silence between the two. “Okay.”

“What do you mean okay?” Keith exclaimed in an outburst, whether the cause was anxiety or anger Lance couldn’t tell. “This is anything but okay! I’m turning into one of them, I am one of them! I don’t know, but it’s not ‘ _okay_!’” He yelled, baring his teeth in frustration. His very, very sharp teeth, Lance noticed. 

“So what?” Lance faked a yawn. “You’re turning into Barney or whatever. You’re fucked up complexion doesn’t change anything except maybe your success rate on Grindr or whatever you use.” Keith’s tension seemed to ease after that, his ears even perking up. 

“You’re not afraid?” Keith asked apprehensively, his eyes softer than Lance had ever seen them. His eyes. They were the same, human, with dark, purple irises. Despite himself, Lance found it comforting.

“‘Course not, you’re still Keith, right?” Lance pointed out, and then added, “I could still kick your butt anytime.” He took a deep breath. “Your new, weird ears don’t change anything about you. If you’re Galra then you’re the best Galra any of us will ever get to meet.” Keith smiled and, although it was hard to tell through the scattered splotches of purple, it looked like he was blushing. “But,” Lance’s goofy smile dropped off his face. “You do need to tell the others. This whole hiding in your bedroom, and just generally acting shady thing has got Shiro all worked up and worried about you. We're all good guys here, especially Pidge and Hunk, I can vouch for them. They deserve the truth.”

Keith’s smile had vanished as well. He looked like he would be sick. “Yeah, I know,” he trailed off. 

“We can do it together,” Lance’s suggestion sounded like more of a question, but it was completely sincere. He understood that something like this could be decidedly horrifying. He had firsthand experience.

\- - -

Lance Sanchez sat on a couch in the Castle of Lions’ living room. On the couch across from him, five pairs of eyes were intently focused on him. The flashbacks to his coming out were vivid and damn near unavoidable. Lance had spent the prior twenty minutes staring at the ceiling of his room, doing his best to prepare himself for this moment, and to bury his memories of announcing his sexuality. All to no avail.

The event had been much smaller for Lance back on Earth, with only his mother sitting across from him. “Is everything okay, mijo?” She had asked, her face framed by curls that had grayed impossibly prematurely. Her warm brown eyes were soft with concern.

“Yeah, mom,” Lance responded, he remembered how he couldn’t seem to get enough breath, and his anxiety twisted his stomach into a sickening knot. He had gone over the words a thousand times, exactly how he would say them to her. “There’s something I think I need to tell you.”

“Si?” She prompted. Lance recalled the feeling of struggling to swallow with his exceedingly dry throat. 

“I just think you deserve to know this. I mean, it shouldn’t be a big deal, though.” He only allowed himself to ramble for a second before getting down to business. “I’m bi, mama,” his use of Spanish made his nerves obvious. He avoided his native tongue as often as possible, mostly to suppress bad memories. Whether he had used it because of nerves, or to sneak his way into his mother’s good favor was unclear, even for him. 

“Oh,” his mother had breathed. “Oh.” She had been his hero. His model for how to stay calm in the face of anything, how to stay caring and accepting. He missed home. He missed her.

“Keith has something very important to tell everyone here,” Lance announced matter-of-factly. “And, I have a request from the man himself that no one here flip shit, okay?”

Shiro gave his signature ‘concerned dad’ raised eyebrow. “Are you and Keith finally going out?” Pidge asked apathetically. “Is that what this is about?”

Hunk smiled, “It’s about time.”

Lance felt heat rising to his face. “What? No! God, no! You two are so dumb,” he spluttered. “Ugh, just shut up and listen.” 

Pidge and Hunk broke into a fit of snickers and exchanged fist bumps. Lance frowned and listened to his heart pounding in his ears. 

“Keith, come on, man,” he yelled out to the hallway. “We don’t have all day.” Deep breath, Lance reminded himself, attempting to make a dent in the mounting anxiety that was weighing down his stomach.

Keith came from around the corner after a surprisingly short amount of hesitation. This time, he wasn’t covered in a sheet, and the contrast of his skin and the purple blotches was striking in the living room’s lights. Lance made eye contact with him for long enough to share an encouraging smile before turning to see his teammates faces. Pidge looked astonished, Hunk’s expression was bordering on anger, if Lance wasn’t mistaken, and Coran seemed to be wearing the best neutral face Lance had ever seen on the usually very animated Atlean. It was the last two on the couch that were a real cause for concern. Both Shiro and Allura looked somewhere between distressed and ready to kill. Shiro’s Galran hand glowed a subtle pink, and both Allura’s fists sat balled at her sides. She looked close to tears. 

“Keith…” Hunk was the first to talk, despite evidently not having his thoughts together. “Your… Ears?” 

A nervous laugh escaped Keith. “Um, yeah,” he stuttered, the parts of his face that weren’t purple steadily turning red. “They’ve- uh- it’s been, I mean, I’ve been like this since getting stranded. I started changing like this, I mean.” Keith had made his way to standing next to the couch where Lance was seated. Instead of sitting, he stood there uncomfortably. Lance gave him a quick thumbs up, right before everything went wrong.

“No, no way,” Shiro had finally articulated his thoughts well enough to get out words. “He has to leave. We can’t trust a Galra here.” Lance knit his eyebrows together in frustration. 

“You’re expecting him to leave the Castle?” Lance asked in disbelief, his blood already beginning to boil. “Because of _your_ issues?” Silence. Everyone knew what Lance was referencing, despite his ambiguity and, for the most part, everyone was shocked. Any discussion about Shiro’s time on the Galra ship had long since become a point of mutual avoidance among everyone at the Castle of Lions. The fact that Lance would bring it up, not to mention in such a rude fashion, was a serious breach of taboo. 

“Well,” Allura recovered after the moment of appalled silence, apparently electing to ignore Lance’s comment all together. “I raise issue with it too.” She began, but Lance was already standing up and responding.

“‘With _it_?’” He exclaimed.

“I meant keeping a Galra in the Castle, not to say Keith is an it!” Allura eyes lit up with indignation, and she sat taller. Shiro also shifted uncomfortably next to her.

“Don’t say you have an issue with ‘keeping a Galra in the Castle,’ like this is that impersonal.” Lance insisted. “Say what you mean. You don’t trust Keith anymore because he’s turning fucking purple. But he’s still Keith!”

“I hardly think I need remind all of you what happened the last time we trusted a Galra to pilot one of the lions!” Allura finally exploded, tears rolling down her cheeks in anger. Even Lance snapped his mouth shut at that. Allura didn’t need to remind them. They were still fighting Zarkon, her father had died. Her entire planet had been lost, her entire race.

“Zarkon and Keith aren’t the same.” Lance finally said, more carefully this time. “We know Keith. We trust him. We can’t stop just because he’s from somewhere we’re not. That’s not right. We should know that.”

“Stop,” Keith spoke for the first time since he’d explained his ears. He didn’t sound timid anymore, he sounded somewhere between sad and pissed off. But at least he sounded sure of himself. “Stop talking about me like I’m not right here. I’m not any different. Lance is right, the only reason you have to distrust me right now is because of the color of my skin. And, I don’t know how it was on Altea, but being from Earth we should damn well know that’s not right.” He took a deep breath, or maybe it was a sigh. Lance couldn’t tell. “Look, I get that my opinion doesn’t really matter in this, it’s up to you guys. So, um, I’m gonna go to bed. I’ll, uh, see you tomorrow, I guess.”

Watching Keith’s back retreating, Lance suddenly felt sick to his stomach. “You guys can’t be serious. You’re being,” his brain fizzed out in his anger. He couldn’t quite think of a word to do his friend’s actions justice. “You’re being, ugh I don’t know, dumb.”

“We’re just being cautious.” Hunk said diplomatically. It was obvious that all this conflict was really messing with him. Lance knew Hunk well enough to be very familiar with his hate of confrontation, especially among friends.

“Cautious of Keith? He’s only ever helped us and,” Lance tried to get his tone to seem joking. He almost felt bad for Hunk. “Come on, the guy couldn’t even make it at the Garrison.”

“Yeah, but we came here to fight Galra, so it wouldn’t really make sense that we’d trust a Galra.” Almost. “Not to mention let him pilot a lion.”

“Right,” Lance’s sarcasm was sharp enough to make Hunk flinch. “We shouldn’t trust him to pilot the lion he saved right from under the Sendak’s nose.”

“Lance,” Shiro’s tone was a warning one, eerily similar to the one Lance’s mother would use when he stepped out of line.

“No,” Lance, after hearing Shiro’s tone, nearly felt like a defiant kid. But, he reminded himself, he knew what he was fighting for was right. He was fighting for Keith. “No, Shiro, you don’t get to tell me to chill when you are all being so,” again, an appropriate adjective escaped him, “difficult. Nothing about Keith has changed, and you guys are all up in arms because he’s from a different planet than you. You can’t expect me to believe that you guys don’t see the parallels to home here.”

“It’s not that we don’t, but,” Shiro stopped, his head had found it’s way into his hands at some point during Lance’s previous tirade. An exhausted sigh escaped from behind his hands. “We will need to keep a close eye on him.” His change of mind was apparent in his voice. “Not necessarily because he’s Galra, just because we’ve never seen anything like this before.” He peeked out from behind his hands, but not in Lance’s direction. “You have the final say, princess. You have the most experience with the Galra.”

Allura’s eyes were still bloodshot from crying, and she looked miserable, but it was easy to see that her anger had faded. “He’s Keith, not Zarkon.” She said, as if it were more for her to hear out loud than anyone else. “I do agree that we’ll need to keep an eye on him, but I trust the rest of you to judge your fellow paladins’ character, regardless of where they are from.”

Lance fell back on the couch behind him in relief. If he wasn’t hallucinating, he thought he caught a miniscule, relieved smile on Pidge’s lips. 

“I’m sorry, Lance,” Lance looked up sharply at the sound of Shiro’s voice.

“You know I’m not the person that any of you owe an apology.” Lance pointed out, making sure that enough hostility made it into his voice to get his point across. “I’m going to bed.” As he left the room, the hushed voices of his other paladins were already audible. 

He had a pretty good idea of what they were talking about, after two incredibly good conversation starters had just been supplied. Keith in general, the whole transformation, did he know about it before this?, etc. And, “What the hell has got Lance all up in arms?” Lance did not have the energy to worry about which one they were discussing. He had one, simple objective: sleep. His door slid open and he reached over to turn on the lights, already tugging his shirt off. When he turned, lights on and shirt off, he jumped in surprise at Keith’s presence on his bed.

“How’d it go?” He asked innocently, obviously not bothered by the fact that he had caught Lance in the act of undressing. Obviously not bothered by the fact that he had scared the life out of Lance.

“Ah, Keith!” Lance yelped, his heart racing in response to his surprise. “God, you can’t just do that!”

“Do what?” Keith asked, again very evidently unaware of his fault. He sat cross legged on Lance’s bed, the blue paladin’s radio in his lap, turned to a generic talk show.

“Well, sure, Jim,” some radio host’s wheezy laugh came buzzing from the tiny radio, “you could say that, but honestly it’s more likely that…”

“Just, I dunno, be in my room like that, sneak up like that, do anything that you just did.” Lance took a long breath, trying his best to slow down his heart. 

“Okay,” Keith agreed, but Lance got the sneaking suspicion that he hadn’t really been listening. “But how did it go?”

“I don’t know.” Lance breathed out in frustration. He couldn’t believe his teammates had responded the way they did. Especially Hunk, he had expected better from Hunk. “I mean, they’re not going to kick you out. But, I don’t think Shiro or Allura are very happy about it.” 

“Oh,” Keith started to fiddle with the tuning knob of the radio. Static and clips of voices and music filled the silence.

“They’re acting like they’ve never met you, it’s so dumb. And besides, the Red Lion trusts you, so that’s good, right?” Lance spat out, trying to control his temper. He honestly felt like punching something, or screaming, maybe both.

Keith shook his head, his eyes still trained on the radio. “The Black Lion trusted Zarkon, it still does more than it trusts Shiro.” He pointed out hopelessly. 

“Fine then,” Lance threw his shirt on the steadily growing pile of dirty clothes on his floor. “I trust you, but I know better than to trust Zarkon.”

Keith let out a half hearted laugh and pushed himself off Lance’s bed. “Thanks, Lance,” he said and before leaving added, “I mean it, I owe you.”

Lance wanted to insist that there was nothing owed, because he was just doing the right thing, but Keith was already gone. So, Lance finished getting changed, turned off the lights, and threw himself on his bed. He laid there, just running through rude and, frankly, brilliant things he could’ve said to the other paladins but had thought of too late. Eventually, to the sound of a muted beyonce song sifting in and out of static, he drifted off.

\- - -

“Lance seemed incredibly, um,” Shiro, Pidge, Coran, and Allura still sat in the living room, more or less in shock from the night’s previous events. Hunk had excused himself to get a snack “before he lost his mind,” in his own words. The remaining four sat around, discussing the new developments of their small little circle. As far as most of them were concerned, the president had just been shot, a solid seventh of their world had fallen into the sea. Their world, the tiny few that they had, were exactly that: all that they had. A change like this would reshape their team, their dynamic, their world, population seven. “Passionate.” Shiro finally finished, his final word sounding almost like a question rather than anything else.

Pidge raised an apathetic eyebrow, if anyone were to ask them, they would never admit it, but it was, more than anything, a facade. A mask to hide the fact that, although not nearly as angry as Lance, they were just as appalled by their teammates’ opinions. Hunk reentered the room, holding a plate with an impossibly large pile of Altean goo. Coran sat quietly, obviously not compelled to involve himself in the conversation for one reason or another.

“I’m surprised you weren’t.” Allura commented, almost absently. Everyone was tired. She was the only one who could even form words, and there was no guarantee that what she said would be well thought out.

“Well,” Shiro seemed laser focused on his knees, as if he’d never seen them before, but trying to comprehend them was a little more than he could manage with his overwhelming exhaustion. “I’m trying to keep everything…” He made a strange hand motion, almost like he were pushing away an undesirable meal. “I don’t know, keep it all down, if that makes sense.” He finally added. 

“Lance has his reasons, too,” Hunk offered diplomatically, “he’s just doing what he thinks is right.”

“So am I,” Shiro insisted and the room fell into silence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow, well, welcome to this hot mess of a fic. it's not yet, but trust me its going to get heavy, angsty, messy. here's the deal, i already feel bad about it, too. so, here's the plan, i'm probably going to make a collection of small one shots of fluffy klance that y'all can go hide and read when this fic gets bad. anyways, hope y'all are enjoying this mess, comments and kudos, etc. are alway appreciated, you know the drill.
> 
> also, quick apologies and request for constructive criticism as far as the Spanish and eventual use of PTSD in this fic. I have no firsthand or even really secondhand experience with either. of course, if anything in this fic makes you uncomfortable, or if you find it offensive, make me aware immediately and i will try to improve any way i can. thank you so much for reading!


	2. Chapter 2

In the middle of the bustling O’Hare and Midway International Airport, an awed six year old impeded the hurried paths of innumerable peeved travelers. He stood, a ticket his mother had saved years to get him clutched in his right hand, a small suitcase gripped in his left, and his neck craned to allow himself to gawk at the sprawling glass ceiling. The view was not spectacular, and was taken for granted by the rest of the people under it, but the patches of overcast sky that were visible through the clumps of snow that rested on the roof seemed to captivate the boy. 

“Lance,” despite breaking through the crowd, the sweet voice did not break the boy out of his trance. “Mijo, vamonos.” Yamile Sanchez gently grabbed her son’s left wrist to get his attention. The young boy turned his dark blue eyes, blue against all odds presented by genetics, to his mother. 

“Mira, mamá!” The small boy pointed upward excitedly, his mother did not look. Instead, she laughed softly to herself before responding.

“Yo veo, mijo,” the adoration in her voice was hard to miss, as was her relief. She had made it, after years, nearly seven, of working, saving, and scraping by, she had finally made it. But, she hadn't, not really. The stateside of her struggle was far more unforgiving and impossibly longer and harder than anything in Cuba. And Cuba had been tough. 

In Lance’s memory, his mother’s mouth was forever turned up in a caring smile, her hair pulled into a ponytail the best it could be, with a stripe of gray running through it that had been there as long as Lance could remember. The most permanent of her features, however, were the bags under her eyes. The first couple of years in the US, she spent the days working and the nights practicing English. Afterwards, the days were spent at school and the nights became a study period of sorts. Lance was too young to understand it then, but now he knew that her vocational choice of nurse had been a compromise. She couldn't have afforded medical school if she doubled her shift at the cafe and kept working until Lance had graduated from the Garrison. 

Lance learned English at school, more often than not, the hard way. English class was the preferable way to learn, with, for the most part, patient teachers and explanatory worksheets. It was the other kids that caused him trouble. The ever present, “say that again! Your accent makes it sound funny.” The crinkled noses and laughter when he couldn't remember the English word for whatever it was at the time. In the worst instances, names would be called that no self respecting adult would ever say, not to mention in front of a first grade age child. By the third grade, Lance had all but buried his accent and was speaking perfect English. It didn't stop the teasing and names, but he was convinced it had helped. 

It was then that he started to, as slowly and methodically as possible, stop using Spanish around the house. His mother didn't question this transition, her unwavering policy had always been that the best thing anyone could give their child was unconditional support, regardless of circumstance. In sixth grade, however, her son’s usage of his first language flat lined, it was then that she took it upon herself to find out why. But, no matter how she tried, Yamile found that it was impossible to coax an answer from her son. 

“What's the matter, Chango?” She asked one night. She sat across from Lance at the dinner table, still wearing her scrubs. 

Lance didn't look up from his homework. “What do you mean?” He asked, although he was obviously uninterested in what his mother meant. 

“Don't try that with me.” Yamile Sanchez gave her son the kind of look that she knew he could feel, even though he wasn't paying attention. “You know what I'm talking about.”

“Nope, no idea.”

She tried bribing him with treats, she tried after he pulled an all nighter in hopes of catching a sleep deprived answer, she tried everything. The answer never varied too much. “Nothing, mom,” “I seriously don't know what you're talking about,” “Do I need to speak Spanish all the time?”, etc. 

Lance, even years later, wasn't entirely sure why he had lied to his mother. Maybe he hadn't wanted to worry her, maybe he just didn't want to be emotional. He wasn't sure. But, the fact of the matter was, in middle school, the teasing started to become more cohesive. It was deliberate, and it was hateful. Not to mention, it had begun to get smarter. The third graders, who repeated slurs they had heard at home, not fully aware of their implications, had turned into eleven year olds who understood what they heard at home and could now do more than just repeat it. It didn’t seem to matter that Lance was from Cuba, not Mexico, the same slurs and insults were used.

“Are you even here legally?” Lance’s strategy for dealing with those who made comment such as this had been in the works since he was in first grade. It had evolved a decent amount. At first, his responses had mainly involved crying, which, he realized soon enough, only made most situations worse. After that, he took to ignoring those who bullied him. This lasted the longest, as it seemed the most logical progression. Maybe, if he made himself small and quiet people would forget about him, or decide he was boring. They didn’t. Finally, he revised his plan of action one last time. It was around eighth grade when it finally clicked. “Or did your mama smuggle you over the border?”

“Is smuggled what they called it back when all of you came over here?” Lance asked, his tone sounded uninterested, but his blood was boiling.

“Excuse me?”

“Or, I’m sorry,” Lance looked up from the book he had been trying to enjoy before delivering the rest of the line. “Do you need me to speak _your_ language, old chap?” He added, his tone sarcastically sweet and his mock British accent pristine. Across the desk where he was seated, someone giggled. Lance barely registered it, he kept his eyes firmly locked with the bully who stood next to his seat, in silent shock.

Obviously out of things to say, the boy muttered a few curse words before slinking back to wherever he came from. Lance smirked to himself. It was the first time he had felt okay after a confrontation of that nature.

It wasn’t long before Lance was known as the class clown. He secured this particular appellation in Freshman year of high school by wearing a sticky note that said “commie” on his forehead for an entire day after someone had stuck it on his back. The whole time he wore it, when anyone addressed him as anything different, he would remind them that his proper title was Comrade Sanchez. All of a sudden, the majority of the school was laughing _with_ him, instead of at him. Four years later, his senior quote was, “Stealing your jobs? More like stealing your girl.” This earned him a total of four high fives (he had kept a careful count), and one hit across the head from his mother.

Meanwhile, the subject of college was a touchy one in the Sanchez household. Yamile, at the age of 35, was still paying off college debt from seven years ago and, as far as Lance could tell, would be for decades to come. She didn’t have the money to send him to any place he couldn’t get full tuition paid at least, and he refused to let her dig herself further into debt for him. Yamile, on the other hand, would’ve thrown herself off a cliff had it meant her son could attend college. She had fought for seven, long, hard years to get to America to apply to nursing school, and she had done it in the hopes that he could live a better life. One that involved less work, but one that, without question, involved going to college. Lance had proposed the Garrison as a discussion ender.

“It’s a job right out of high school,” he had argued to a obstinate Mrs. Sanchez. “And, don’t you think it’d be cool to see space?” He attempted to impel her to agree. 

“Oh sure,” Yamile’s sarcastic tone was already obvious in her two first words, “until you die.”

“But, mom-” Lance wanted to argue but, he realized, he couldn’t come up with a compelling case. Especially not with the crew of the Kerberos mission going missing only a few days prior. He wasn’t sure if it was a blessing or not, but his mother had no intention of letting him finish what he was saying.

“Absolutely not, Chango,” she said, her tone communicating well enough that option was not, under any circumstances, open. 

So, Lance moved on, but not easily. He pouted about it for days, nearly driving Yamile insane. Piloting a spaceship, leading a mission into the unknown, seeing space, these had all been things he’d aspired to do and his mother had shot it down in one sentence. It was half way through his senior year before the discussion opened again. Lance had been sitting on his bed, pouring over his calculus BC homework, when Yamile broke into his room, yelling about the Garrison, and college, half in English and half in excitedly blurred Spanish. At first, the jumble of words and admixture of languages was impossible to understand but, only after Lance had led his mother to sit on his bed and she had calmed down, Yamile began to make sense eventually.

“You can go to the Garrison.” She started off, her head held high. It made Lance nervous, she was saying it as if she had won, which, by all logic, she hadn’t. It was suspicious, in the least. 

“What’s the catch?” He asked, deciding to refrain from celebrating too soon, although his heart was pounding with excitement. 

“No catch,” She assured him, “but, you still have to go to college.”

Lance’s eyebrows knit themselves together in his confusion. There was no need to go to college if he joined the Garrison, he would already have a job. He opened his mouth to ask what exactly she was talking about, when his mother took it upon herself to explain.

“You didn’t do much research, did you, Chango?” She teased before getting on with her point. She sat on his bed, practically bouncing up and down in her excitement. Despite the gray hairs that fell onto her face from her loose ponytail, the elation in her eyes made her seem impossibly young. “The Garrison will pay for the college tuition of any of its cadets! All you have to do is stay there for two years, go to college, and then they will require three more after that!”

Stunned, Lance blinked once, then twice before really processing what his mother was saying. He really _hadn’t_ done his research, had he? 

“So,” Lance’s voice was hushed and cautious, as if he might shatter his mother’s sudden change of mind. “I can apply to the Garrison?” Yamile nodded her head vivaciously. Lance launched himself into a hug a little too hard, knocking the air out of his mother. “Gracias, mamá.” 

Yamile hugged her son back but, when he pulled away, she held onto his shoulders, holding him at arm's length, and made stern eye contact. “manténte a salvo, mijo.”

Lance wasn’t sure, sitting in God knew what galaxy, having sworn to fight off Zarkon and his forces, if he had really kept the promise he had made when he had told her, “Siempre, mamá.” He was sure that she had gotten news from the Garrison that he was missing. He was sure that she was worried sick.

But, he also knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that his mother would have been proud of his decision to accept Keith, weird, purple ears or not.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> first of all, a quick reminder that i'm using my (incredibly very oh so) limited prior knowledge of Spanish with a good dose of google translate to get all of the Spanish in this story, so please excuse any mistakes or leave me a kind correction in the comments. also, I don't know a lot about how the Garrison would actually function, so in this chapter there were a lot of assumptions i made about its m.o. that were heavily based off of how the military works (i.e. you can get your tuition paid for service). 
> 
> anyway, as always, hope you're enjoying, and thanks for reading!


	3. Chapter 3

The tension in the Castle of Lions could have been cut with a knife. Although, if anything, Lance would argue that it would take the biggest bayard they had to get through all of it. Shiro started keeping an annoyingly close eye on not only Keith, but Lance, after the night that Keith had “come out,” as Lance had taken to calling it. Hunk had begun acting oddly and uncharacteristically aloof. Allura was evidently doing her best to act natural, but it didn’t go unnoticed when she flinched away from Keith when he got too close, or when she suddenly stopped simply holding casual conversations with the red paladin.

Keith had taken on a new role, as well. He was, in the aftermath of his announcement, a sort of peacekeeper, mostly through the act of calming down Lance.

“They’re impossible,” Lance was pacing around his room, which, within a few days of the incident, had become a sort of a homebase for the two boys. Lance continued on his rant, obviously holding back on some more choice words. “It’s almost been a week and _nothing_ has changed!”

“But,” Keith interjected, “you’re forgetting the things that didn’t change in the first place. Stuff that isn’t necessarily bad.” Again, per some strange, new tradition of sorts, Keith sat on Lance’s bed while the his friend went on his daily tirade. He sat, often uninterested, and fiddled with the Lance’s little handheld radio. “Like, Pidge. They haven’t changed a bit.”

“But-” Lance tried to start, but it was late and Keith was tired of listening. Everyday he had to deal with the other paladins avoiding him like the plague and then, when he finally got to hang out with the only person within light years (and maybe in the entire universe, although pointing that out seemed a bit depressing and, possibly, melodramatic to Keith) who wanted to see him, all he talked about was how the other paladins avoided him like the plague. It was exhausting. 

“And Coran!” Keith added, a little bit louder this time. “He still acts kinda like some weird type of-” Keith came up at a complete loss for a word. His sudden pause compelled Lance to stop in his incessant pacing. “You know, some type of weird,” Keith faltered again, “uh.”

“Weird uncle.” Lance finished for Keith without actually thinking about what he was saying. He was too preoccupied with the fact that Keith couldn’t come up with anything for himself. 

“Um, yeah, sure,” Keith responded, even though he didn’t sound one hundred percent convinced. Lance looked at him for a few minutes, just thinking. Keith hadn’t changed much since the night he had first revealed himself to Lance. He still had those big, fluffy, purple ears that protruded from his hair. Lance wondered idly if the new additions made doing his hair any harder. The purple pigment hadn’t spread noticeably, but his hands had grown the most Galran in appearance, sharper and more claw-like.

Lance realized he had been staring, and that Keith had caught him doing so. He quickly looked away towards the next thing that he could find to focus on. Which happened to be the floor. 

“Point is,” Keith continued after a short, painfully awkward, pause. “Not everyone is being as impossible as you think. I mean, I’m still here, right?” Lance looked back at his friend to see he was just a reluctant to reestablish eye contact, as he suddenly seemed to be talking to the radio rather than Lance. “And you seem to be forgetting that Shiro has seen some shit, you can’t discount that.”

Lance took a deep breath and let himself drop onto the bed next to Keith. He felt a very sudden, unbearably embarrassing urge to lay down, and rest his head on Keith lap. He found himself blushing, despite being almost beyond one hundred percent sure Keith couldn’t read minds. “Yeah,” Lance mumbled, “I’m sorry.” And then, “Galra’s can't read minds, right?” When all he garnered from Keith was a raised eyebrow, he amended his question. “You haven't developed the ability to read minds, have you?”

“Um,” Keith gave him a bemused look for just long enough that Lance actually started to doubt the answer would be no. “No.” Keith frowned. “Why? What are you thinking?” 

“What? Nothing. I was just curious.” Keith had put down the radio when Lance had sat down. The two were just sitting there, on Lance’s bed, talking. It wasn’t special, there was nothing exceptional happening, and it was driving Lance insane that he could feel heat rising to his face for no reason. “It’d be mad cool if you could read minds, is all.” Lance focused his attention on a crease in his sheets.

“Oh yeah, I’m sure.” Keith laughed, and suddenly there was a pillow being shoved into Lance’s face. “I bet that apology wasn’t sincere,” Lance tried to push the pillow away, but Keith was on full offensive now. 

“No!” Lance yelled, falling backwards away from Keith’s ruthless pillow attack. “I meant it, dude!”

“Whatever,” Keith sighed, he sounded mockingly unconvinced, but he stopped his assault. “Sure you did, Sanchez.”

Lance stopped talking about the others and their attitudes around Keith after that. But, their conversation had little effect on how he conducted himself around the other paladins. The very next day, he found himself in a screaming match with Hunk, that, for the most part, consisted of Lance yelling at Hunk, and Hunk attempting to respond calmly.

“It’s just,” Hunk’s voice had long since taken on the tone that made his frustration apparent. The thing that drove Lance insane was that, despite the fact that he was mad, Hunk would never let it show beyond his signature small shift in tone. “We came out here to fight Galra, doesn’t it seem counterintuitive to trust one?”

Lance fumed, he was much less skilled at hiding his frustration. “We didn’t come here to fight Galra, Hunk.” He lashed out, his bayard barely missing the training bot. The debates didn't bother to cease, even during training. “We came here to keep the damn peace!” Lance landed a hefty blow on the robot, which stumbled back, giving him time to catch his breath. “We're here to help people!”

The two paladins, fighting back to back, had been sent to the training room to work on team work, which had been faltering since the team’s first real division. Allura, although just as passionate on the matter, had grown tired of watching everyone drift apart. “What if Zirkon were to attack today? In your sorry state, we'd be lucky to be able to form Voltron,” she had scolded. She began to send duos of paladins to train together only two days after Keith’s “coming out.” However, the others’ distrust of Keith was left ignored and Keith was kept away from weapons as often as Shiro and Allura could manage without looking suspicious. 

“It can't hurt to keep an eye on him, is all I'm saying!” Hunk exclaimed, barely deflecting an attack made by his mechanical sparring partner. “It's better safe than sorry. And I don't want him hurting you or Pidge!”

“He won't.” Lance had exhausted his ability to repeat this point over and over with passion just to be ignored, “he's still Keith.”

And, he was right. A week passed. The whole castle held its breath. Nothing changed. Keith was still Keith. 

Two weeks passed. Shiro refused to back off of his surveillance. Paladins were sent out on missions in groups of three or two, Keith was kept at the castle, away from his lion. Nothing changed. Keith was still Keith. 

Three weeks passed. Lance refused to go on any missions unless Keith was sent as well. Shiro stopped assigning Lance missions. Nothing changed. Keith was still Keith. 

The fifth week came. It was during this week that the situation complicated. 

Talking about the issue had fallen out of fashion for the most part. Instead, the the residents of the Castle of Lions had taken to glaring at each other and making comments under their breaths or to their confidants. Despite that Pidge had, at that point, made it common knowledge that they sided with Keith,they sat patiently and listened to Hunk's whispered, angry rants. Shiro and Allura, who, under any other circumstances, Lance would have been (very quietly, because sure, everyone was supposed to think Allura was the one he liked) overjoyed to see bonding, had also teamed up. The yelling had made more sense to Lance. 

One night, after yet another exceptionally awkward dinner, Keith went missing. According to nearing five weeks of tradition, Lance and Keith met in Lance's bedroom after dinner to talk. When Keith couldn't be found in his bedroom, Lance found himself actually talking himself down from a panic. He realized almost immediately that he was being ridiculous. Maybe Keith didn't want to talk, but they were in the-middle-of-nowhere space, and Keith was allowed, no matter the circumstances, nowhere near his lion. He couldn't have gotten far. 

Lance immediately set off for the training room. As far as Lance could tell, it was Keith's favorite space, his own bedroom included. He ignored Hunk's voice, coming from the living room, asking where he was going. 

The lights in the training room were off, only adding to its feel of immense space. Lance was almost certain that it might have been the biggest room in the Castle even though he thought that was a bit absurd. 

“Keith!” Lance called into the vast room. Suddenly, as he walked deeper into the room, his stomach knotted up. Something felt _off_. 

Just as Lance turned his back on the room, everything went wrong. Whether it was because of the bad feeling in his gut, or the fact that Keith being in the training room with all the lights out just didn't make sense, Lance had decided to go to Keith's bedroom. But, in a blur of motion that was too sudden and fast to be processed, even with reasonable amount of light, Lance found himself on the ground and out of breath. His attacker had landed on top of him, only making breathing harder. 

“Keith?” Lance’s attempt at an exclamation came out in more of a wheeze due to his lack of air. It was Keith, though, positioned over Lance, hand raised and ready for another strike. He looked angry, his expression twisted in hatred that Lance couldn't imagine he had given him cause to have. “What the fuck, dude?”

Keith’s hand moved faster than lance could register, again, slashing open his cheek. His eyes were no longer human, they glowed a shade of yellow that seemed harsh in the surrounding darkness. 

“Shut up,” Keith growled, his other hand came in for another blow, but now Lance was ready. He rolled his head to the side, and winced as Keith’s claws grazed his ear.

“Keith, calm down! I-” 

“Shut up!” Keith attacked where Lance had less mobility, as Keith was sitting on him. “You’re _always_ talking!” Lance let out an agonized scream as Keith buried his jagged hand in Lance’s stomach. “You’re obnoxious, you’re cocky,” with every word Keith twisted his hand either way. Lance couldn’t think straight, he wasn’t sure if he was still screaming or not. It only made sense that he would be. His midriff was in so much pain he could barely hear Keith’s word over the pain buzzing in his head. “You’re in-fucking-sufferable!”

“Stop,” Lance tried to push Keith off of himself, but he didn’t have the strength. Blood from his first wound had begun to run into his eyes. He could barely see, he had never experienced so much pain. Lance didn’t know what was going on.

Keith twisted his hand again. He was still speaking, but Lance couldn’t hear him, his vision was swimming. His view was going black around the edges. He was fairly certain he was crying. He probably would have been in denial, had he been able to function mentally. The world flashed white before fading away completely.

The fifth week passed. Everything changed. Keith wasn’t Keith.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh boy, here we go.


	4. Chapter 4

It was like a car crash, the way reality suddenly plowed back into Lance’s mind. The thoughts came first, closely followed by the headache and, finally, physical pain creeping through his entire body. He gasped, still too breathless to yell, which would have been his reaction of choice. As he stumbled out of whatever had been holding him upright, pain shot through his abdomen, in a flash of white hot pain, his nose cracked unpleasantly against the floor as he came back to his senses.

“Fuck,” He muttered, still only aware of pain and the gleaming floor in front of him. His head buzzed with pain, thoughts, and something else he couldn’t name but somehow seemed familiar, he couldn’t put together a coherent thought through all the noise.

“Lance!” Someone yelled. Hunk, Lance was fairly sure, although he didn’t have anywhere near enough strength to actually check. “Oh my god, Shiro! Allura! Pidge!” Hunk took it upon himself to move Lance, much to Lance’s displeasure.

“Ow, shit,” Lance’s words slurred eloquently in his pain. “Fuck! Hunk!” He yelled, another stab of pain tearing through his midsection. Suddenly, he felt much more awake.

“Sorry, buddy,” Hunk whispered, it almost sounded reflexive. “What are you doing out of the healing pod?” 

Lance, now propped up so that he almost sitting normally, gave Hunk a muddled look. “Healing pod?” He tried to form a more cogent sentence, but failed. Slowly, he began to piece things together. 

_Keith had attacked him. He had almost died._

Shiro was the first to make it to the control room. He rushed to Lance’s side.

_Where was Keith? What had happened?_ why _had it happened?_

Lance’s mind began to spin again and, by the time Allura and Pidge had made their way to the control room, he was sobbing. Pain wrenched in his gut with each breath and his tears stung the gashes on his cheek. His mind buzzed with thoughts, uncontrolled and fragmented. More so than his body, his head seemed to be falling apart at the hinges.

After what couldn’t have been, realistically, longer than a few minutes, but felt like years, he stopped crying. Shiro had taken it upon himself to comfort Lance, kneeling beside him and repeating that everything was okay again and again. Even as Lance came down from his panic, he had to admit, nothing seemed like it would be okay.

“You should still be in the healing pod,” Allura stopped chewing on her lip long enough to comment. “Who knows which of your injuries you’ll disturb or reopen while bawling like that.” Although her words were blunt, her tone was caring. 

Lance, finally regaining his ability to think rationally, wiped away his tears and waited for someone to explain what was going on. What had happened. Where Keith was. Anything. No one did, instead, everyone sat around watching Lance anxiously as if he might drop dead any minute. To say the least, it didn’t do much to assuage his nerves.

It was the best Lance could do to say the first thing that came to his mind, “Where’s Keith?”

A small, tense silence followed. Eye contact was avoided at all costs. Panic began to rise in Lance’s chest again.

“You need to get back into the healing pod,” Shiro spoke more to the floor than anyone else. “But, you deserve to be filled in before that.” Despite a stern look from Allura, he continued, “Pidge found you on the floor, bleeding out. Keith was there. It was pretty obvious what had happened.” Shiro took a deep breath and the others took turns shifting uncomfortably while he recounted what had happened. “You have them to thank for your life, honestly. Right now we’re holding Keith in one of the airlocks, it’s the best we had to work with and he’s dangerous.”

Lance’s brain reeled to keep up. He opened his mouth, to protest, to ask something, he wasn’t sure. But, Shiro shut him down before he could figure it out.

“Yes,” Shiro had that look in his eyes, the intense one that gave whomever was on the receiving end the feeling that their soul was being search. That made Lance feel like Shiro just might know everything. “He _is_ dangerous. That’s not up for debate anymore. And,” Shiro finished, reading the thoughts even Lance couldn’t make sense of, “no, we don’t know why he, um, did what he did.”

“Oh,” Lance couldn’t think of anything better to say. He was to tired to cry again and, otherwise, everything hurt too much. He couldn’t even process his feelings yet, they would be too much. So, he sat there, facing his friends, as he went numb.

“You need more time to heal,” Allura insisted, already turning to punch some commands into the healing pod’s controls. 

“Not in there,” Lance pushed himself away from the healing pod.

After his first round, the idea of taking another cryo-nap had never sat well with him. Firstly, it left a bad taste, not only in his mouth but his brain. Now, with his mind much less muddled than before, he could easily place the previously unrecognizable buzzing in his head as being a result of his stay in the the healing pod. And, although his train wreck of thoughts had slowed considerably, he knew from experience that it would be hours before the haze from the cryotube lifted. Secondly, it made him feel, not out of place, but out of time. There was a strangely lucid feeling that he was hours behind the rest of the universe. Almost like cosmic jet lag. It was not pleasant.

“What?” Allura’s head snapped up from her position at the console, and she took a moment to look at Lance as if he was crazy before continuing. “What do you mean, ‘not in there’? You have to be in there to heal, otherwise who knows how long it will take you.” She scolded.

“Then we’ll have to wait and see.” Lance objected, grimacing as he attempted to pull himself onto his feet. “Pilot’s are trained in first aid at the Garrison, so Shiro should be able to wrap up my cuts just fine.” He spoke through gritted teeth and pain, but he was standing. “Then, I can heal.”

“Lance,” Hunk sounded worried, but not like he was willing to start a fight over anything. Allura was a different matter entirely.

“Why would we do that?” She demanded, her hands balled into fists at her sides. “You are injured terribly. In fact, standing up could have split your stomach right back open! And, another thing, those can hardly be called ‘cuts,’ they’re wounds, Lance. You could bleed out, or-.”

Shiro held out his hand to stop Allura. He looked to tired to fight, but he definitely didn’t look pleased either. “Allura’s right, we’ve got this great technology, it’d be idiotic not to use it.”

Lance frowned. Now that he was standing and no longer moving, his stomach had almost stopped hurting, as long as he ignored the slight spikes of pain that came with each breath. “Well, I don’t know how it feels for Alteans, but I don’t like it,” Lance realized he sounded like a bratty child, but he could not care less. He would not go back into the cryotube. “It doesn’t feel right.” He paused, no one looked convinced. “Please, Shiro.”

Shiro ran his hand over his face and then through his hair. Whether the gesture was meant to convey stress or exhaustion, or was simply habitual was unclear. “Fine.” Shiro immediately garnered yet another glare from Allura but, again, ignored her. “Let me fix you up, but there will be absolutely no straining yourself.”

“Yes sir,” Lance lifted his hand to give Shiro a mock salute, but stopped midway to his forehead when a shock of pain shot through his arm. He tried to play off his yelp of pain as laughter, but it was obvious he wasn’t convincing anyone.

“Can I see him?” Lance asked tentatively as Shiro finished wrapping his shoulder, which he had somehow managed to sprain. He was sitting on one of the couch’s in the living room. Everyone else had been sent away by Shiro, who had told everyone and, in Allura’s case, demanded, that he needed quiet to dress Lance’s wounds. 

“No,” Shiro insisted without hesitation. “You need to rest.” Lance frowned, and Shiro added, “and Allura won’t want you to. I’ve already underminded her wishes enough today.” He took a deep breath and tied off Lance’s final bandage. A few moments later, he added in resignation, “As far as I’m concerned, you don’t need anyone’s permission to go somewhere within the Castle. I don’t see why that would have changed.”

“Thank you, Shiro,” Lance tried his best to sound as sincere as possible. After weeks of fighting with him, the sudden support from Shiro was like a breath of fresh air. Something going well was a welcome change of pace.

\- - -

Commander Prorok had not faced serious charges for his insubordination, which he recognized as nothing short of a miracle. His placement of a bounty on Voltron had not been what Zarkon had instructed him to do, but it had not interfered with the Galran leader’s plans either, so he had been pardoned. The real trouble with his superior had begun later, when the paladins escaped the Galran military base with the Altean princess. There had obviously been help from the inside, and suspicion had fallen hardest on those in his charge. Now, after these accusations had had time to rest, he was called once again into the King’s throne room.

“You’ve been informed of our most recent strategy, I trust, Commander.” Zarkon was mocking his aide, as Prorok’s force’s had, quite deliberately, been kept in the dark since the energy shield incident. 

“No, sir,” Prorok admitted, his head still lowered in a bow. 

“Come now, Prorok, pretend to have a little dignity left,” Zendak quipped.

“Sir?” Prorok raised his head along with his question. If he didn’t know any better, he would have said that the commander and chief seemed to be in a good mood. Prorok had been a Commander in the Galran army for a decade. He had _never_ seen Zarkon in a good mood.

“Consider yourself back on my closest council,” Prorok’s jaw dropped. “Once again, your failure has not done considerable damage and, as it cannot be proven, can be forgiven.”

“Sir, I don’t understand,” Prorok interjected. It wasn’t like the King to show mercy once, not to mention twice. There was something very wrong about this, Prorok decided, he would have to proceed with caution.

“Of course you don’t,” Zarkon’s usual tone of frustration began to show itself. If anything, it made Prorok more comfortable. “I need to you to lead a field mission, Prorok. However, you will not be bringing your men.” Prorok didn’t dare object. “I need you to extract the red paladin from the Castle of Lions.”

Prorok opened his mouth, but he couldn’t think of the right question. How? Why? Perhaps, ‘what?’ was the most fitting. But, none of them seemed to cover enough, and none seemed nearly reverent enough. So, he closed his mouth and waited for an explanation. 

“I thought it was quite a clever idea of mine,” Zarkon sneered, “seeing as you’ve had problems in the past, trusting Haggar’s magic. I thought, perhaps some firsthand experience might do you some good.” 

“I’m sorry, sir?” Zarkon seemed to be acting much more like himself now, with catches to his deals, and ‘clever ideas’ that were sure to only be a pain for his subordinate.

“You see,” Zarkon stood now, his cape sweeping the ground behind him as he made his way to a window. Prorok resisted the urge to follow him. “Haggar has successfully taken control of the Voltron’s red paladin. It was easiest for her, as he is half Galra,” Prorok’s eyes widened in surprise. He had also been deprived of that knowledge. “And, the others distrusted him anyways. If you can retrieve him, and I do not care whether you strike a deal or go in fighting, then Voltron cannot be formed.” Prorok began to understand where the King was going with this. 

“I see,” Prorok nodded. 

“Further details and timing must also be discussed, but that will all come later.” Zarkon turned from his view of the cosmos. “Do you accept, or will you fall on your sword, Prorok?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> http://mythicrain.tumblr.com/private/150745014992/tumblr_odvkrrnxLh1tsbzmp


	5. Chapter 5

Lance had been sealed in an airlock once. It hadn’t been funny at the time but, in hindsight, he had often found himself laughing about the experience. Only, all of a sudden, as he stood feet from one of the airlocks, it didn’t seem so funny anymore. As he stood, gathering the courage to face his friend, his friend who had saved him from one of those very airlocks not too long ago, his friend who had slashed open his cheek and left him to bleed out, he didn’t think much of anything was funny.

He remembered the last time he had come on that hallway. Because, no matter how funny he had found the mishap, Lance had never felt compelled to go near the airlocks since. He remembered Keith pulling him from the open airlock, he remembered his life flashing before his eyes. He remembered the comedown, as both of them had sat, hearts still pounding, and simply being thankful to be alive. Now, revisiting the moment, trying to get his feet to move towards the airlock, he felt sick. He was not nearly as grateful to have survived his most recent near death experience. 

Finally, after a deep breath and a short pep talk, Lance convinced himself to step into Keith’s line of view. Looking at Keith, an entirely new wave of sickness crashed over him. For a moment, Lance legitimately thought he might throw up and, had he had anything in his stomach, he might have. Keith looked exactly as Lance remembered him, no worse off than that night. No different from that night. When Lance took another step, Keith’s yellow, Galran eyes raised to focus on him. Despite himself, a part of his brain took a moment to relive the last time those eyes had been on him. 

“Keith?” His voice wasn’t as study as he had planned for it to be. With his mind racing through the slow motion replay of the last time he had seen Keith, his knees threatened to buckle under him. His abdomen ached lazily, as if to remind him further of why he shouldn’t have been there.

Keith didn’t respond and Lance realized he had no idea what he wanted to talk about. That there might have been nothing to talk about. He had a million things he wanted to know. The only problem was, he wasn’t sure how to put them into words. If it weren’t for the fact that Keith’s unwavering stare made him so unbearably uncomfortable, it was possible he would have walked away, or said nothing at all. 

“Keith, it’s okay if you need to talk.” It was immediately obvious to Lance that this hadn’t been what he’d meant to say. In fact, it didn’t even begin to cover any of the bases of what he felt he needed to say. The questions he felt he needed to ask.

“I don’t.” Keith didn’t sound vicious or wrathful, only disinterested, as if anything Lance had to say wasn’t really worth his time. That pissed Lance off a little.

“Oh, you don’t? Nothing you want to say? Nothing you’ve got to explain?” Maybe it pissed him off more than a little. “I helped you, we were friends, I _trusted_ you, and you’ve got nothing to say? You’re an asshole, did you know that Keith?” He swallowed down a sudden and powerful urge to cry, his eyes burning. “The least you could’ve done was finish it, or have done it before I-” Lance corrected himself, “before we got to know you. Before I wasted five weeks of my life defending and protecting you. After I wasted five weeks-” _falling for you_. Lance choked on his words, or the tears he was holding in that seemed to be clogging his airway. Keith was still staring at him, his face still showing nothing beyond apathy. 

Lance turned his back, feeling worse than he had before. He had thought that maybe speaking to Keith would have made it better, or easier. He couldn’t have imagined feeling worse was even possible. Now he was sorely aware, not only that it was possible, but of exactly how it felt to feel worse. He took a deep breath, for some reason, walking away was just as hard, if not harder, than approaching the airlock had been. 

“Lance,” Lance jumped violently at the sound of Keith’s voice, muffled by the sealed airlock door. “I’m,” Keith’s voice was slow and, even though he still sounded unconcerned, he sounded as if he were struggling to figure out the right words. “Not sorry.” Lance turned in surprise, a jolt of pain running through him as a result of his sudden movement.

“What?” Lance asked quietly. The pain had knocked the air out of him. He wondered if his voice could be heard through the glass.

Keith was preoccupied with examining his hand, and Lance couldn’t help but hope it was because he couldn’t bear to look him in the eyes. “You know, when we went to save Allura, Zarkon told me I fought like a Galra soldier.” Lance stared in confusion at Keith. “I felt proud when he did. I don’t think I should have, but I did.” Lance waited for further explanation. After a moment of dead silence, it became apparent that was all Keith intended to say. Lance, at a complete loss for words, turned to leave. He wasn’t sure that he could even process what had been said to him.

Keith’s distaste for his fellow paladins wasn’t new. Lance took a step, his back turned on Keith. And, Keith didn’t regret anything. Lance knew that he had been naive, perhaps he had been depending on the fact that his life would follow some cliche story line, where Keith immediately felt guilty for all that he did and crawled back to him, but that was not the case. No, apparently even the hope that Keith’s recent snap had been solely that, was naive. Lance’s stomach knotted itself painfully. He barely stopped himself from jumping again, when Keith spoke again. 

“I’m telling you this, Lance,” Keith began, and Lance felt strangely compelled to turn around and yell that he hadn’t asked. That he didn’t want to know. Instead, he picked up as much speed as he could without hurting any of his injuries. “Because, let’s face it,” Keith sneered, his tone jarringly malicious. “No matter what I say or do, you won’t give up on me.”

Lance’s stomach lurched and, without warning, he was crying. It would have been closer to sobbing, if it hadn’t been for the fact that he was in pain, and he was exhausted. He walked away, refusing to let Keith see him cry. 

Again, as he walked back to his room, he resolved to himself that, at least it couldn’t possibly get worse. He couldn’t possibly feel worse than he did in that moment. He was even sure that his wounds reopening would be refreshing in some perverse way. And, again, almost immediately, he was proven wrong.

“We can’t let him free,” hushed voices only just spilled into the hallway from one of the vacant bedrooms. “Just like we wouldn’t think of letting Sendak free.”

“I don’t know,” the voices were too quiet for Lance to be sure whose was whose, although he was fairly confident the current speaker was Pidge. Their voice seemed to carry better than the others. “Keith isn’t Sendak.” 

Lance flinched. He had frozen, mid step, after hearing the voices easing their way into the hallway. He now stood petrified, listening to his friends hold a meeting, very intentionally without him.

“He’s a Galra with extensive knowledge about the castle and the lions.” Another voice, whether it was Shiro or Hunk, Lance wasn’t quite sure, explained. The tone of frustration let on that the meeting had been going on for a while, and that the discussion had long since overstayed its welcome. “You can’t seriously believe cutting him loose isn’t a recipe for disaster.” 

“I just don’t get what you think our other options are.” In their annoyance, Pidge had raised their voice loud enough that Lance knew for sure it was them. “We can’t just keep him cooped up in a damn airlock. First off, who knows how safe that is for everyone here. Secondly, we all know that will kill Lance.”

Hearing his name snapped him back into reality and, before he had thought about it, he was charging into the room. Lance assailed the ajar door, leaving the momentum to crash it against the wall. He paid little attention to the shocked faces of the other paladins. He didn’t have the energy to care, he only had enough energy to be pissed.

“If you think it’ll kill me, why don’t you fucking include me in the discussion?” No one responded and, even though he knew it was purely because they were to stunned to, Lance continued on as if their silence had been a byproduct of neglect. “Or how about this revolutionary idea,” he added, hoping his sarcasm would hurt the others. He wanted them to feel even a fraction of what he was feeling. “We just invite everyone to the damn meetings, because that’s how groups work, normally.”

“Lance-” Shiro, still not fully recovered from Lance’s sudden appearance, looked apologetic. Hunk, on the other hand, did not.

“Maybe we didn’t include you because you’re biased? Because you’ve been biased on this issue since day one?” Hunk was angry, something Lance wasn’t sure he had ever seen before. If he was thinking rationally, Lance might have realized that his friend’s wrath had more to do with the fact that they hadn’t held a civil conversation in weeks, and less so with the actual issue at hand. But, if there was anything Lance wasn’t doing, it was thinking straight.

“And you’re not? Shiro isn’t? _Allura_ isn’t?” He pointed accusatorily towards the Altean princess, who had composed herself fairly quickly, but had apparently decided not to waste her breath. 

“Lance,” now it was Pidge who attempted to calm him. They had stood up and, despite their calm tone, had grabbed Lance’s wrist firmly. “Maybe we should discuss this somewhere else.” It wasn’t a suggestion but, rather, an order. One that Lance followed with a surprising lack of resistance.

“What the fuck, Pidge?” He exclaimed as soon as they were out of the room.

“Listen, I know this is bad,” Pidge admitted with no further excuses. “But, you’ve gotta know, we- well, actually mostly Shiro-” They interjected, correcting themselves in taking credit for Shiro’s idea. “Thought it would be too much for you to think about right now. You need to heal, and you’re already stressed beyond anything any human should have to endure.” The drained, unhinged part of Lance wanted to laugh at that. What he wouldn’t give to only be stressed. “Shiro proposed that it wouldn’t be healthy for you to be a part of this conversation,” they took a breath, “and we _need_ to resolve this as soon as possible.”

During this speech, Pidge had escorted Lance back to his room. They both stood outside his door, fidgeting uncomfortably. Lance wasn’t sure what to say. He wouldn’t be allowed to participate in the debate, that much had been made perfectly clear. But, he felt foolish giving it up without a fight.

Pidge had known him long enough to be able to tell, roughly, what he was thinking. “You’ve already fought for it enough today. Rest up.” They took a weary pause. Lance suddenly felt self absorbed. He hadn’t considered how exhausting the situation was for everyone else. To be fair, he had a lot on his plate. “I promise, we won’t make any decisions without you. You can have veto power, but please, just,” their right hand moved to massage their temple, “rest for now. You need it.” 

Lance shuffled into his room after a few more moments of tense, uncomfortable silence. He barely stopped himself from throwing himself on his bed in irritation. Instead, he eased himself onto the bed, completely forgetting to change into his clothes. He couldn’t find a position that offered total comfort, so he laid on his left side, as to avoid hurting his sprained, right arm, and listened to his radio, as two marginally annoying announcers enthused over the looming start of baseball season.


	6. Chapter 6

The first game in the Major League Baseball season was the Yankees versus the Red Sox. It was kind of a big deal, because apparently they were infamous rivals. Granted, Lance only knew this because of the considerable hype around the game and, primarily, because of what the radio told him.

It was only thanks to Shiro, and his aggressive campaign to save Lance from going insane, and to keep Hunk and Allura from turning into prison wardens of sorts that Lance had any freedom at all. The new rules that governed his life included “no walks longer than eight minutes in duration,” and “ten hours of sleep, at least, are required per night.” The reason for the eight minute cut off was, Allura had thought five minutes was more appropriate, but Shiro asserted that humans were a lot more hardy than she gave them credit for, and demanded ten minutes was a better limit. As a result of their disagreement, the eight minutes compromise was struck. 

Lance had walked to the airlock hallway several times, despite that he couldn’t work up the courage to talk to Keith. The walk was only six of his allotted eight minutes and, after his walk, he would sit in the adjacent hallway for his compulsory fifteen minutes of rest between walks. Mostly, he tried not to cry as he sat there, but sometimes he would bring an old Altean children’s toy that he couldn’t quite figure out. He would sit and tinker with the small, much too complicated toy, trying to understand its function. It became a sort of twice daily ritual of his, up until the beginning of baseball season.

Maybe it was the homesickness, or maybe it was the fact that, for some strange reason, the only stations the hand held radio had been getting for days had been baseball centric ones, but it was Opening Day that gave Lance the courage to approach Keith again. 

Of course, as he walked closer, his heart pounding, one thing ran through his head, in Keith’s voice, _“No matter what I say or do, you won’t give up on me.”_ Lance’s throat was too dry for him to swallow, but he kept putting one foot in front of the other. As much as he hated to admit it, Keith had been right. For some reason he couldn’t seem to place, he was still trying to be kind to Keith. Lance still wanted to be friends, he still wanted to give Keith a chance. The sound of the announcer’s hyping the upcoming game filled the hallway as he made his way towards Keith’s airlock. Finally, he stopped in front of the airlock, approaching it somehow seemed easier this time, despite all that had happened. 

“Lance,” Keith’s voice saying his name almost felt like a punch to the stomach, but Lance ignored it. It sounded almost like a question, enough so that Lance might have thought he had actually surprised Keith, had he not sounded so disengaged.

“Keith, um,” Lance suddenly realized he was seriously underprepared. He hadn’t thought at all about what he wanted to say. “Hi,” he tried his best to give a convincing smile. “So, uh, it’s Opening Day.” Keith stared at him, silent and a bit confused. “For, um, Major League Baseball, you know.” It didn’t really look like Keith did. “Well, I, uh, I mean,” Lance fumbled over his words. Keith’s unwavering, yellow eyes made it so much harder to think. “Do you wanna listen in with me?”

“I guess I can’t really run away from it, can I?” It might have been a joke, but if it was meant to be, Keith’s delivery was way off. Either way, it was suddenly easier for Lance to breathe. He sat down, his back leaned against the wall opposite Keith’s airlock, and turned up the radio. 

The first inning was underway, and Lance and Keith sat, not another word between them and listened. A batter for the Yankees, with some outrageous name that Lance couldn’t possibly be expected to remember, had belted out an “impossibly impressive,” grand slam straight out of the park before the end of the second inning. By the fourth inning, it was obvious the Red Sox stood no chance. 

Lance wasn’t even sure how many innings were left. All he knew was he was raised in Chicago and, by god, he was a Cubs fan. That was the extent of his baseball knowledge. His mother had once attempted to save money to take him to a game, but as soon as he learned about what she was doing, he insisted she use it for a spa day. Yamile was the definition of selfless, and possibly also stubborn, and it took weeks of convincing, as the money sat around unused, until Lance finally persuaded her. He had never bothered to waste his time watching baseball on tv and, as a result, his knowledge was extremely lacking.

“Wow!” One of the slightly irksome announcers exclaimed. “That’s a double play and the end of the fifth! The Yankees are unstoppable today, I guess we’ll just have to see how that lasts, right Jim?”

The other announcer took to answering, explaining that the Yankees seemed to have drafted nearly all the worthwhile players. Even though, for the first time in a hundred or so years, it looked like the Cubs were also up for a good season. Lance pumped his fist in the air at this, again only with the knowledge that the Cubs were technically his team.

By the end of the game, even Keith had gotten into it. Marginally. He seemed to get frustrated at all of the Red Sox’s failures, and Lance couldn’t help but wonder if he was a fan. But, he didn’t dare ask. The silence between them was more comfortable than anything else had been since Keith’s change. It almost made Lance hope things could go back to normal, but he wasn’t brave enough to test it. Some irrational part of him thought maybe the borderline ease would shatter along with the silence if he opened his mouth. 

So, they sat in silence as the gap in the scores widened. It all just seemed right, even with everything going wrong. When the game ended, the Yankees’ score somewhere upwards of 20.

“Well, this is a dismal start to the season for the Sox,” one of the announcers observed unnecessarily. Even Lance didn’t need to be told that this had been a rough start for the Sox. “Hopefully their luck will improve, but as for the Yankees-”

“Yes, this is an phenomenal beginning for the Yankees.” The other announcer interrupted. Lance didn’t get up or turn it off because he really wasn’t sure what to say to Keith that would properly put an end to his impromptu baseball listening session. He didn’t want to say anything to end it. “They really hit the jackpot with this year’s draft…” He didn’t want it to end. 

The announcers went back and forth, bickering about whether the Cubs or the Yankees had had the best draft. Lance didn’t really absorb anything they were talking about, mostly because most of it was in confusing baseball jargon, and involved names of people whom he had never heard of before. Finally, after a few minutes of the same boring discourse, Keith spoke up. 

“Um,” he started off. He didn’t look quite sure what to say. If Lance wasn’t wrong, and when it came to people he rarely was, Keith didn’t look sure of what to think, either. He almost looked conflicted. His next few words sounded strained, but Lance couldn’t place why. “Thanks for this, Lance.” 

It was evident that was all he was going to say, and that it was as close as Lance thought he would get to a good conclusion. So, without another word between the two of them (Lance couldn’t have imagined responding, and honestly had nothing to say), Lance picked up his handheld radio, and walked away. 

Even if there was no talking involved, even if it didn’t really fix anything, just sitting near Keith had made him feel infinitely better. So, partially because of that, and partially because he was craving some sort of structure in his day to day life that didn’t involve Allura’s “Recovery Regimen,” Lance made the walk to Keith’s air lock for a daily baseball game a daily event. It didn’t really matter who was playing, or who won. In fact, Lance was fairly certain neither him nor Keith cared all that much about the baseball. For all Lance knew, Keith only kept doing it because he was locked up, but Lance needed the company. And, for some convoluted reason, it was easier to be around Keith, who had actually physically attacked him, than any of the other paladins.

Paladins who were still completely leaving him out of important meetings. No progress had been made on the issue of Keith, as far as Lance could tell. Even a week after the incident, a strange sense of stale shock still hung over the castle. The only escape from it, at least from what Lance had been told (mostly by Pidge), was working towards saving the universe. Which Lance was also not invited to. Admittedly, this decision made a bit more sense to Lance, since he was injured. 

Either way, his friendships with everyone seemed to be falling apart in front of him, and the reality was, he didn’t have the energy to care. So, he sat, his handheld radio relaying the events of a Cubs game, and pretended that Keith hadn’t nearly killed him, that Keith wasn’t being held prisoner in the same airlock that he’d saved Lance from, that he still had one friend left in the Castle. That his life wasn’t, for nine innings of a game he didn’t care about, falling apart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> omg i'm so sick. i'm sorry if this chapter sucks, and it is a bit short, but boy oh boy do i feel like butt. anyway, y'all are breaking my heart with all these comments about crying and stuff. god damn. hope your still enjoying, and thank you guys so much for the reception this is getting, all the comments are really important to me and are honestly what's keeping me going rn. y'all are the best!!


	7. Chapter 7

For a horrifying moment, Lance didn’t quite remember where he was. He sat up before he knew what he was doing but, when he finally came to his senses, the first thing he remembered was falling. Not physically, at least he didn’t think so, just falling through darkness. And, when he remembered everything else, he groaned and fell hard back onto his back. One coherent thought becoming his first since coming to, _fuck_.

Among the other things that Lance was barred from even thinking about, was combat. Training, as well as actual missions. This hadn’t caused him too much anguish, although he had to admit to missing piloting Blue. He had been on his way to complain to Shiro about his new found cabin fever, when Hunk raced passed him. 

“What’s going on?” Lance yelled after Hunk. They had found themselves stuck stubbornly on ‘talk if it’s necessary or I would otherwise look like a total asshole if I ignored you’ terms. Not that Lance minded. Except he did. It had been somewhere past a month since Lance had been able to sit down and talk to one of his best friends. If the rest of his life wasn’t falling apart, it probably would have been driving him crazy.

“Oh, just a mission,” Hunk shrugged, but kept moving. Hunk’s lukewarm response didn’t trick Lance, he was excited. Everyone was. They hadn’t seen a mission in weeks and, since no one else’s guts were threatening to bust from their stomachs, it was at the forefront of the other paladins minds. Lance was not the only one climbing the walls.

“Oh, cool,” Lance responded in the same disinterested tone, in an attempt to hide his disappointment. He knew better than to hope to be allowed on the mission. He followed Hunk, despite that.

Shiro was yelling marching orders and fragmented explanations of the situation as the others hustled to their lions. Lance found himself tempted to ask Shiro if he could go anyway, regardless of his knowing what the answer would be. He decided better of it, and instead watched the pre-mission chaos. 

“Allura, since we’re missing two paladins, we’ll take all the help you can give us.” Shiro’s voice sounded less commanding when he turned his attention to Allura. Lance suspected it was because Shiro knew well enough that he was not, by any means, in charge of the Princess of Altea. 

Allura gave Lance a nervous glance, and then proceeded to fail at hiding what she said next. Lance stood in the entryway, nearly half the room away and listened in. “And leave him alone with, um, Keith?” 

Shiro sighed. Lance was fairly sure he had grown tired of the whole Keith discussion weeks ago. Now, Shiro spent most of his time trying to stop Allura from taking too aggressive a stance on any issue involving the younger paladin. Ex paladin? Lance wasn’t sure. 

“Allura,” Shiro started, more softly than Allura had spoken. Lance had to rely largely on reading his lips to understand what he was saying. “Coran will be here. Besides, Lance had to learn his lesson the hard way. The least he should get for that is your trust.” 

Lance turned around to return to his room then. He didn’t care to hear the rest of the conversation. He had spent the first few weeks after being attacked sitting on the other side of closed doors listening to what his fellow paladins had to say about him. He had heard enough. 

Once in his room, Lance closed the door and crashed on his bed. He was in good enough condition that the time allotted for him to be on his feet had been generously extended to twenty minutes. It had also stopped hurting every time he breathed. As far as Lance was concerned, he was coming along nicely. The others weren’t as easily convinced.

Lance laid on his back and stared at the ceiling. This had become an all too common pastime for him, and was a great contributor to his cabin fever. He listened half-heartedly to the talk show that played on the radio in between baseball games. Because of the rapidly changing stations, Lance refused to change the station, lest he get caught on another German Pop station with no hope of catching the next Cubs game. Of course, this meant he also had to weather the dumb talk shows that were used as fillers. Currently, two men, both named Frank, were discussing a man who had had a full-on meltdown in a Walmart in Iowa, complete with throwing canned soups at clerks and eating two boxes of twinkies he didn’t pay for. It wasn’t exactly the type of news Lance would have chosen to hear about home, but it was oddly comforting. Earth was still Earth.

After he was sure everyone was gone, Lance ventured out of his room once more. He snuck around, trying to avoid being accosted for exceeding his twenty minute limit, and made sure Allura had left with the others. He looked through the majority of the Castle, staying standing well over his apportioned twenty minutes before he felt safe. Coran was passed out on the couch. Lance hadn’t asked him personally, but he got the feeling Coran hadn’t caught much more of a break than anyone else. 

Finally satisfied that no one else was creeping around the Castle, he made his way to Keith’s airlock. Once he was far enough away from the living room, where Coran was napping, he turned on the radio in his jacket pocket. Frank and Frank were wrapping up their shtick, and it was only minutes until the Nationals faced off against the Dodgers. 

Except, when he rounded the corner, Keith didn’t look normal. Well, no, that wasn’t right. He looked more normal. He looked scared. His eyes were back to purple, with irises and pupils and all. 

“Lance?” He asked. Lance’s stomach dropped. He felt it again, a nagging in the back of his brain, something off in his gut.

“Keith?” Lance responded slowly, unsure of how to approach the situation. He wasn’t even sure what the situation was.

“Lance, what’s going on?” Keith looked dazed and confused under his flat out fear. Lance furrowed his brow. Keith had been remote and impassive for weeks, but it was clear he had known what was going on. What he had done. Now, acting like he didn’t, it didn’t make sense. “Why am I in here?”

“Keith,” Lance still wasn’t sure what to say. Why wouldn’t he remember? It suddenly dawned on Lance. He closed the distance between himself and Keith’s holding cell in seconds. “Keith, buddy! How do you feel? You don’t remember any of it?”

“What are you talking about, Lance? What the hell is going on?” 

A thousand ideas ran through Lance’s mind. He could let Keith out, they could talk it all over. Everything could go back to normal. At least normal-ish. Whatever came over Keith had gone just as suddenly as it had come, it only made sense that it would, Lance assured himself.

_“Lance had to learn his lesson the hard way.”_

“What all do you remember?” Lance asked, his stomach turning. He couldn’t tell if it was with excitement, or nerves, or something else. This, plus the fact that the sudden movement had done his injuries no favors, was almost enough to make his vision swim. If he was thinking clearly, he would have released he was near passing out. 

“I,” Keith took a moment before responding. Lance didn’t blame him. “I remember I was going to meet you after dinner, like we always did. I been awake in here for, god, I don’t know, fifteen minutes? I’m too hungry to have only been here that long, though.” Lance flinched, he had never looked into how the others had fed Keith. He had often found himself wondering if they did. But, he knew Shiro better than that, he wouldn’t have been that cruel or allowed the others to be. 

Lance took another deep breath, pacing himself. His hand was itching to open the airlock. 

“You don’t remember anything in between?” He tried to keep his features passive.

“Nothing.” Keith was smart enough to know he should have memories other than the ones he had. 

“You remember fighting Zarkon, during the rescue mission to save Allura?” Keith cocked an eyebrow. Lance had to admit it was comforting that he didn’t understand the relevance of the question.

“Yes,” he answered tentatively.

“How did you feel when he told you you fight like a Galra soldier?” Lance asked, not sure what he was looking for. He expected Keith to be honest and, although he could’ve been lying about receiving it like a compliment, Lance had a feeling he hadn’t been.

Keith’s features fell a little bit. The look of shame on his face told Lance what his answer would be before he said a word. But, Lance found it funny, it was a relief. “Lance, I’m sorry I never told you.” Keith started. “I just didn’t know what to think. I,” Keith paused again, his eyes, his normal, human, Keith eyes, searching Lance’s. “It made me feel _good_. Like I wanted to live up to his expectations.”

Lance felt like crying and, for the first time in what felt like an eternity, it wasn’t because he was miserable. He had to contain himself from bounding over to the airlock controls, on account of his wounds. He took a deep breath as he hit the release button and, as the door slid open smoothly, he took what he was sure was the first real deep breath he’d taken since he’d left Earth. Silently, he debated whether it would be appropriate or not to hug Keith. As Keith stood, Lance ultimately decided it wouldn’t be. 

For a moment, he thought Keith had decided the opposite, as his _friend_ rushed towards him.

Now, of course, he was laying on the floor, too damn tired to get up. Tired of the betrayal. Tired of being blindsided by Keith. Tired of letting himself be blindsided by Keith. Just, tired of what was going on. The longer he laid there, the closer to his incapacitation he remembered. 

Lance remembered Keith raising him off his feet by his neck. His throat burned and his eyes bulged. He remembered the way it stung his lungs while he tried to breathe. Keith was stronger than he looked. 

Lance remembered what Keith said, “You’re so dumb,” he had sneered. Maybe it would have hurt Lance’s feelings if he wasn’t so desperate for air. It was hard to think when running out of air. “It’s almost astounding.” 

Lance might have never stood up, he might have laid there and let himself rot away, if it weren’t for Coran. For all Lance knew, he was still asleep in the living room. He was in danger. Lance wondered idly about where Keith had run off to. He would have preferred tracking him down himself to facing Coran.

As Lance stood up, it occurred to him that he wouldn’t have minded it if he were the only one in danger. He wouldn’t have minded losing his life. He didn’t want this to be happening. He didn’t want to have to hear what the other paladins had to say about his naïvety. He couldn’t face Keith.

He dragged himself down the hallway, his mind not functioning well under the pressure and humiliation. And his dismay. Those moments with Keith when he seemed normal, when he’d been _Keith_ again, were very possibly the most painful in Lance’s life in retrospect. He would have taken another partial gutting.

Suddenly, a small tremor shook the Castle, as if it were shivering. The lights along the hall flickered and faltered. Lance held onto the wall to keep himself steady. He must’ve been discarded by Keith rather forcefully, as his stomach was aching with renewed ardor. It took a second wave for Lance to realize why it was happening.

“Shit,” he whispered to himself, “the crystal.” 

On the bright side, he thought as he changed course, he knew where Keith was.


	8. Chapter 8

Lance wasn’t thinking when he decided to head straight for Keith and the control room. He should have checked on Coran, he should have made a plan, he should have contacted the other paladins. But, against his incredibly repressed better judgment, he did none of those things. 

He walked to the control room, careful not to go too fast, as to keep his head from swimming, or his stomach’s from reopening. Even only from being checked and discarded earlier, his gut felt like it was threatening to burst through his skin. If it came down to a fight, Lance knew he wouldn’t win. He didn’t need to be thinking straight to know that. But, he had himself convinced that it wouldn’t.

He couldn’t have described how he felt even if he wanted too. He wasn’t sure if it was repression or shock or something else, but he felt numb. The only thing that ran through his head as he walked was that he wanted Keith back. He had thought he _did_ have Keith back. He couldn’t give that up now. It was this same one-track kind of thinking that had always gotten him in trouble. 

It wasn’t until he was right outside of the control room that his legs began to shake. He remembered sneaking away to that very room when he missed Earth. He remembered being comforted by Coran. He just barely remembered everything blowing up.

“Keith.” Even with pain lazily pulsing from the wound in his abdomen, Lance was painfully aware of a heavy, sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. Keith hadn’t made it to the crystal yet, he was still working on wreaking havoc on the control panels and other assorted equipment around the room. It looked like a war zone, entire areas of the room gutted and spewing sparks into the dark. It almost seemed ripped right out of a movie. “Keith!” Lance yelled, gathering up his courage. “What the fuck man?” He asked when Keith turned around.

Lance flinched a bit, despite himself, when all Keith responded with was a small snarl. But, regardless of the fact that he was scared out of his mind, even though his world was falling apart again, or maybe because of it, Lance was royally pissed. And, Keith’s inarticulate response only added to his anger. 

“Listen, Kogane,” He began, taking steady steps towards Keith despite both his better judgement and immense fear. “I know you can do better than that.” All he was given in return was a glare from Keith, so he kept going. “Either you can start talking or you can come at me, but sitting there and not doing anything isn’t an option.” Lance was dangerously close to Keith now, “This is some serious bullshit. I said it a million times, and my stance hasn’t changed,” within reaching distance, “you, who you actually you are, doesn’t change just because you grew yourself a new pair of ears.” 

Lance had gotten close enough to surprise the glare right off of Keith’s face. He wasn’t thinking straight. Lance, even Lance, who had gotten himself handcuffed to a pole on an alien planet by a hot alien who had only flirted with him for a hot second, would have known better. Lance, who had almost blown up his best friend’s car asking his crush to prom. Lance, who leaped in front of explosions, who had nearly gotten himself sucked out into space, who had made innumerable dumb, heat of the moment decisions before, would have known better. 

But, this Lance was a different one. One who didn’t care nearly so much if he lived or died. One who was resigned to his life crumbling in front of him. One who had lost everything. One who had lost Keith. One who had loved Keith.

He wasn’t thinking. 

“You’re still Keith.” Lance insisted, before landing his lips on Keith’s. 

Lance was an expert kisser. He had practiced on his fair share of pillows and hands. And girls. And boys. And just people in general. He made the best of every situation. But, he had to admit, there was little even he could do when the other person was absolutely not working with him. Part of him, the same part that had gotten him this far, the same part that was largely responsible for the fact that he was kissing Keith Kogane under the present circumstances, was convinced it was because Keith was shocked. Another, more primal, probably, at this point, more reasonable part of him, was waiting for Keith to land a blow. But he didn’t.

Lance pulled away. He would have taken a step back had it not been for Keith’s arms wrapping around his waist. 

“Lance,” Keith’s eyes. They were his, and the irises were purple, and Lance was almost completely certain he had never seen anything more beautiful. Keith’s voice was gentle. Lance wondered if he was afraid of breaking the moment too. Lance hoped, for just a moment, that he had fixed everything. 

And then pain shot across his back. “What did you think this was?” Keith’s eyes weren’t his. Everything pulsed white for a moment of hot pain as claws ripped through Lance’s shirt, and his back. He fell backwards as Keith stopped holding him up. He couldn’t scream, his throat wouldn’t let out the noise. “A damn Disney movie?” Keith sneered from above him.

Shock numbed the pain, but Lance felt warm blood pooling around him. He felt tears sting his eyes. Nothing he had done mattered. Keith was still all wrong. He didn’t understand. Had it been something he had done?

He was going to die. Maybe at least the universe, or whatever asshole of a deity that controlled it, would have the decency to give him that much. To change that much this time. 

“Lance,” Keith plunged his claws into Lance’s leg. “What the fuck, man?” 

It was a strange, out of body experience, to watch Keith taunt him from somewhere that wasn’t really in the moment but, at the same time, was all too much there. It was strange, to know that there was pain, to be sure that he should have been feeling it, but not feeling anything at all. 

He must have let out some sort of noise, because Keith added, “Listen, Sanchez, I know you can do better than that.” Before twisting his hand viciously.

This was enough to bring Lance back into the moment, the agonizing pain of it suddenly very real. Now, he screamed, and he was very aware that he did. The pain in his leg was something he could only really compare to the very similar pain in his stomach that he had also been treated to by Keith. 

Again, he felt himself slipping. Although, this time, he honestly wasn’t sure if it was because of the pain or blood loss. Either way, his vision was swimming in a very real way, causing Keith’s face to dance in and out of focus and, at times split completely into two different faces. 

Once more before he thought, he was saying something. The world was slipping. Some small part of him that still wasn’t quite in the moment wondered idly if he would ever be able to use his leg again. Another part of him reminded himself that he may not live to find out. He found the idea oddly comforting.

“I’m sorry Keith.” His mouth moved on its own, he couldn’t have focused enough to make words he wanted to come out do so if he had wanted. “I’m sorry I couldn’t prove them wrong.”

Then, the pain was gone. Everything was. There was nothing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well,,,, that was a thing. 
> 
> um, sorry for the short chapter, i'm swamped w drivers ed and an insane amount of hw and shit. i did the best i could, but that's also why you're getting this in the morning, bc i have no time in the afternoon. hope you, uh, enjoyed? ig? oh boi.


	9. Chapter 9

Lance had only been truly hungover once in his life. Long story short, he had regretted immediately, and decided it was single handedly one of the worst mistakes of his life. But, this was all easy to say because he didn’t remember the night before. So, he woke up, head pounding, sans his best friend, whom apparently he had flirted relentlessly with the entire night, and with the fear of facing his mother hanging over him. At first, he had pretended to have the flu, but Yamile Sanchez was not buying it. After all she was smarter than that and, in her own words, “I was seventeen once too, imbécil!”

 

Yamile only resorted to yelling insults at her son after standing outside of his room for nearly two hours asking why he had locked himself in. Lance wanted, at that exact moment, to do nothing other than go right back to sleep for a minimum of five years. His phone was constantly lighting up with texts from other people who had been at the party. Most were harmless, excited teenagers, texting him about his awesome rendition of Born This Way by Lady Gaga, or fawning over his legendary kegstand that he couldn’t remember for the life of him. However, the only texts that he was actually paying any mind were those from his best friend’s girlfriend, who had some pretty nasty things to say after he had laid his moves on her boyfriend. 

 

He responded to his mother in a variety of groans as he let the light of his phone burn his eyes. Everytime he stood up, his head swam, so he had only attempted the feat twice. One of those excursions had been the bathroom to empty his stomach of whatever he had eaten the night before. His head had never hurt worse.

 

For some reason, this was the occasion that came to mind as Lance stumbled from the healing pod, again. But, his current regret wasn’t anywhere near rivaled by any previous experience, and he could remember the night before perfectly well. Other differences included the fact that he didn’t feel the need to barf too bad yet, and this time he felt about a day behind the rest of the timespace continuum. 

 

There was no train wreck of thoughts this time, there was no need to wonder what had happened. For the most part, Lance knew exactly why he was in the situation he was in. And, he knew that it was mostly due to his idiocy. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he wondered how he had found his way into a healing pod, but it was the least of his concerns. 

 

This time around, he walked to find the other paladins. It was evident he had been in the healing pod for long enough to actually heal because, for the first time in weeks, he didn’t hurt in every way imaginable. At least not physically. But, instead of moping, he decided to find Shiro or Pidge, preferably someone who would actually explain what had happened, and not exclusively yell at him for fucking up again. 

 

But, following the theme of his life thus far, Lance had no such luck.

 

“ _What are you doing out of the cryopod?_ ” Instead of a hug or a ‘thank god you’re alive’, this was how Allura greeted him. Lance turned around, wincing at her shrill tone. His head was still suffering major brain freeze after his time in the aforementioned cryopod. Allura was coming at him nearly full speed, anger burning in her eyes. Lance wilted before she had said much of anything at all, he just didn't have the energy for it anymore. “What went wrong? What were you _thinking_? Are you fully healed?”

 

Her questions began to blur as Lance stopped paying attention. He wasn't sure if it was defensive or simply an exhaustion thing. He only snapped back to reality when Allura grabbed his hand impatiently. 

 

“Are you even listening to me?” She dragged him down the hall. He might have known exactly where she was taking him had he been paying attention. “Do you remember anything?” She paused slightly, but not long enough to allow Lance to answer. He opened his mouth and was immediately cut off by her. “Coran only knows so much. He says he fell asleep!” She exclaimed, obvious exasperated. “Honestly, the pair of you…”

 

They were standing outside of the living room, now, and it must have been where Allura was taking him. Lance guessed this because she paused outside of it a moment. “I am really glad to see that you're okay,” she insisted, enveloping him in a quick hug before pulling him into the room. 

 

Inside, Lance was greeted by four, sullen pairs of eyes. They all brightened when they fell on him, each to their own degree. Shiro’s eyes held a kind of weary pride, Hunk a relief that he tried his best to conceal. Lance observed all of this all while surprisingly devoid of feeling. He wasn’t particularly happy to see any of them. He had thought, for a moment, that maybe he would hug Hunk, or maybe Shiro. Someone. It was strange, not to feel like he needed a hug, but know that this was a situation worthy of needing a hug. 

 

“Lance,” Hunk blurted awkwardly.

 

Coran stood up, with nothing to do once he was on his feet. He twiddled his hands nervously once he was up, unsure what to do. 

 

Pidge looked down. Lance wasn’t sure why. 

 

Lance felt sick. His four friends suddenly looked like a sea of faces. He knew, he could see it, that his friends weren’t upset, but he something in him insisted that they were all disappointed in him. Something told him that this was it for him. They would tell him they had done something awful to Keith, and that he was being sent home- No, he stopped himself. Being sent home would be too good.

 

No, he stopped again. He took a deep breath. He noticed he had grabbed Allura’s shoulder to steady himself. He tried to think straight as Allura guided him to a chair across from everyone. These were his friends. 

 

_So was Keith_. He would have liked to say the part of him that nagged him, reminded him of the worst case, kept his mind reliving those moments, with Keith, his betrayal, was small, but it wasn’t. Not anymore. He couldn’t ignore it anymore. It was there when he looked at his friends, his friends who were relieved to see him okay, his friends that he knew he could trust. It was there when he was alone. He wasn’t sure how, but it had been there in the healing pod with him, hanging over him, waiting for him to wake up.

 

He hated it. He was the comic relief. This, this edgy weird rough stuff, it wasn’t him. Shiro, maybe, Keith definitely. But not Lance Sanchez. He knew his archetype, and he was not enjoying straying out of it. 

 

“Lance!” It was Shiro, he was leaning forward, waving his hand in front of Lance’s face. Lance looked up, a bit startled to be wrested from his thoughts. 

 

“Huh?” He asked, again he wasn’t listening to what the others were saying. 

 

“Lance, I know it’s probably hard to talk about,” Shiro paused uncomfortably, looking to Allura. Lance wondered why. For support? Encouragement? Lance only had the energy to speculate for a moment. “But we need to know what happened.”

 

Lance tensed, his hands gripping the arms of his chair. He didn’t know where to start. He didn’t want to think about it. He didn’t know if he could say it. 

 

Another deep breath. They were his friends. _So was Keith,_ it came again- they weren’t Keith.

 

“I thought,” Lance couldn’t look anyone in the eyes. “I thought he was back to normal. He sounded back to normal. He looked back to normal.” Lance tried not to remember the way Keith’s eyes looked. Tried not to remember the way he resembled a cornered animal, his wide eyed relief at seeing Lance. Lance’s throat burned with held in tears, every word hurt to speak, every thought was like reliving the whole affair. 

 

He paused. Everyone else was deathly quiet. Through his sadness, Lance’s stomach rolled with anger. Anger because he didn’t understand what was going on, anger because he was sure he looked like an idiot, anger because no one was saying anything, anger because no one could fix it. Anger because he _just wanted Keith back, damn it_.

 

“So I let him out,” Lance let his anger fuel him, it was the only thing keeping words coming. It was the only thing that kept him moving. Maybe even the only thing that kept him breathing. “And I got attacked.” Lance didn’t go into detail there. He didn’t explain that, at first, Keith had spared him, leaving him on the floor next to the airlock. He didn’t explain that he had seeked out a second confrontation. He didn’t explain what had happened before Keith had nearly killed him. He almost retched even thinking about saying it out loud. He couldn’t think of the last time he had eaten and he was thankful. 

 

“But how did you get to the healing pod? How did you get Keith back into the airlock?” Shiro asked suddenly, after several moments of silence. Lance’s sickness was pushed to a back burner as his head snapped up.

 

“What?”

 

“When we got back,” Shiro explained. “Keith was locked back up. You were in the healing pod. Coran was still asleep.”

 

Keith hadn’t hurt Coran. It was a funny thing to find solace in with all that was going on, but even with his mind swimming with confusion, he was relieved to hear Coran had been left alone. It was temporary, though, as he realized what Shiro was implying.

 

“Are you sure Coran didn’t-?” Lance didn’t even finish his question before he caught Coran shaking his head in his peripheral vision. 

 

“No,” Coran looked slightly ashamed, “I slept through the entire thing.” He offered no excuses nor an apology. Lance didn’t figure he was owed one. This was all his fault.

 

“But,” Lance began slowly, “It wasn’t me. I-” He swallowed hard. “I remember passing out after Keith had-” He felt sick again. But, he knew what he remembered. “I lost too much blood, my leg was,” a phantom pang of pain rushed through his left thigh. He tried to stop himself from reliving it, but he couldn’t. Like a broken track, in the back of his mind, Keith’s sneer and taunts relayed themselves over and over. “Well, I wasn’t going anywhere is the point. I would have needed to be carried.”

 

“Maybe he just doesn’t remember it because of the pain,” Allura suggested to Shiro. Shiro shrugged, but everyone looked to him. To be fair, he understood how humans worked much better than Allura.

 

“It’s just,” Hunk took a deep breath. It was the first time he had spoken. Lance had to force himself to make eye contact with his old best friend. A new wave of nausea caused him to pitch to the side. “Really good to see you’re alright, buddy.” He said, giving Lance his most genuine, trademark, sent-straight-from-heaven, Hunk smile.

 

Lance did his best to offer a smile back. He couldn’t really speak to what it must have looked like to the others, but it couldn’t have been better than a grimace. “Thank you, Hunk.” 

 

Despite hearty protesting from him, Allura insisted on escorting him to his room when everyone else decided they were done. Pidge, although they had said nothing, gave Lance a long hug once he had stood up. And, again, he found himself forcibly pushing down tears. Then, after his assertion that he was no longer injured, he was walked to his room by Allura.

 

“Sorry for the interrogation session.” Lance wasn’t sure that he had ever heard Allura sheepish before. The tone didn’t seem to fit right with her voice.

 

“It’s fine.” He responded shortly, unsure of what else to say. He could have assured her that he understood why they needed to do it, he could have told her he didn’t mind, but one seemed to go without saying and the other was a lie. Naturally, saying it was fine wasn’t necessarily true either, but he didn’t want Allura to feel guilty.

 

“Oh, okay.” Allura seemed to have nothing to say following this, and they both continued in silence until they reached Lance’s room. If the silence had been awkward, Lance didn’t have the energy to notice or care. 

 

When he got to his room, he fell on his bed immediately. But, instead of sobbing, or throwing things or doing something, _anything_ , he sat on his bed and stared. For some reason, the tears he had fought so hard in front of the others wouldn’t come now that he was alone. So, he stared and listened to the muffled sound of his radio that someone must have thrown back into his room at some point, not bothering to turn it off. 

 

A baseball game was playing into his sheets. After a while he noticed numbly that it was a World Series game. No matter how bad he wanted to turn it off, he couldn’t bring himself to. 

 

So, he sat and listened and tried to remember how it felt to be able to cry.

 

The game ended at 11. It had gone into three extra innings, the two fighting for their first win of the series. Lance leaned over and turned off the radio. Then, he grabbed the nearest sheet of paper and a pen. In a somewhat trance-like state, he wrote down the scores.

\- - -

In the morning, Keith Kogane woke up to see the results of the most recent baseball game posted on the window of his airlock. 


	10. Chapter 10

_Wormhole access currently restricted… Autopilot active…  
T-minus four days to your arrival..._

Lance did his best to go about his daily routine as if nothing had happened. He did his best to ignore all his issues. Allura had declared that he owed her three weeks of physical therapy, even though he was perfectly fine. He tried his best to remind her that he had healed in the healing pod, and didn’t need to be rehabilitated. Allura, per usual, was in no mood to listen.

 

“For priding yourself on being a diplomat, you’re not very good at compromising.” Lance had huffed and puffed the entire way as he was dragged to the training room. Once there, he tried his hardest not to think about how it was Keith’s favorite room. He tried not to think about the cool down sessions after stressful dinners as he sat on the sidelines and watched Keith dismantle training robot after training robot, all the while ranting. He tried not to think about the first time Keith had attacked him.

 

It became increasingly obvious as the sessions passed, three a day, that they were meant to be much more about therapy therapy, rather than physical therapy. Lance had caught on by the end of the first day. Allura would run stretches, all the while running her mouth. It was enough to drive Lance up a wall. If he had thought he could get away with skipping and not lose a limb for punishment, he would have dipped out on any further ‘physical therapy’ appointments.

 

“How are you feeling, Lance?” Allura asked gently as Lance struggled to touch his toes. He was gangly, sure, but that applied to his legs just as well as his arms. He had never been able to touch his toes but, he had figured, if he could save the goddamn universe, he should be able to get this dumb stretch down.

 

“Allura,” He grunted, nearly pulling a muscle trying to get even just the tips of his fingers to graze his foot, “I said I’m doing fine. The healing pods work wonders.” 

 

“That’s not what I’m talking about, Lance.” Lance did not have to look up to imagine the look of impatience on Allura’s face. Lance sighed at his shoes and straightened. He couldn’t do it. Piloting a sweet space lion? Check. Surviving an explosion? Check. Other assorted near death experiences? Check. Touching his toes? Nope, he’d still fail that part of Phys Ed. 

 

“I’m okay.” He insisted, moving onto another stretch, and not waiting for Allura’s say so. She was standing, arms crossed and frustrated, staring daggers at him. She looked like she was trying to read his mind. Lance wondered if Alteans could read minds. A pang of sadness made his stomach start to hurt.

 

_“Galra’s can't read minds, right? You haven't developed the ability to read minds, have you?”_  
“Um, no.” Keith frowned. “Why? What are you thinking?”  
“What? Nothing. I was just curious.” 

 

“You’re repressing your feelings.” Allura scolded, so bold in her accusation that Lance blinked a few times, processing exactly what it was she had said. He opened his mouth to defend himself, but couldn’t think of anything to say. It wasn’t that she was right- even though she undeniably was- but that he couldn’t think of anything that would convince her otherwise. “You need to face what you’re feeling and what happened.”

 

“Woah,” Lance said, his as light as he could manage. He wasn’t sure he was succeeding. “I think I came to the wrong therapy,” he joked, “I’m booked for physical therapy, not a shrink.” 

 

Allura shot him a dirty look, but she didn’t pry. She did try again the next session, and every one to follow, but Lance didn’t let her make much progress. On the second day, she began to worry about his ability to take care of himself.

_T-minus two days to your arrival..._

Lance didn’t sleep anymore. He stayed up to listen to all the World Series games, which went as late as twelve sometimes. Then, he would post the scores. After that, he laid in bed for an hour or two, praying he wouldn’t have another nightmare.

 

Allura noticed the bags under his eyes, and so did everyone else. Coran offered him some putrid tea that was supposed to help him sleep. Lance turned it down, because he needed to be awake for the World Series and because it smelled an awful lot like a dead skunk. Hunk would come in and turn off the lights in Lance’s room every night at ten, and so Lance would lay in the pitch black and try to visualize what was happening on the baseball field back on Earth.

 

Hunk and him were on speaking terms again. The nice thing was, they skipped right over the awkward silence part of it all. Lance would have loved to say it was because they were such good friends, but he was sure it had more to do with situation, and the fact that they hadn’t talked in so long. They both _missed_ each other. They didn’t talk about anything too serious, mostly because Lance immediately clammed up at any mention of his emotions and Hunk expertly evaded any mention of Keith. But that was more than alright with Lance.

 

Everyone still held meetings without Lance, but now he didn’t mind as much. He didn’t have it in him to pursue control of his life, and he honestly wasn’t sure what he would do with it if he got it. Now, what Pidge had said what felt like forever ago, resonated with him. It absolutely would be too much for him.

_T-minus twelve hours to your arrival..._

Lance had also lost his appetite, for the most part. Especially seeing as the only food around was unappetizing, green, Altean goo, it was a rare occasion that he actually forced any of it down his throat. This was, of course, another point of concern for everybody. Shiro left plates of the goo outside Lance’s door where he would find it waiting for him in the morning. Pidge, ever the caring, sibling-like figure, had taken to throwing food at Lance during his Allura-mandated morning runs.

 

“Either you run faster or you eat breakfast, Sanchez!” They yelled after him menacingly from across the training room. 

 

It was refreshing that his friends cared, Lance just wished they were better at showing it. After his morning session with Allura, for instance, he had come back to Coran and a room covered in small, leech-like creatures. He had barely contained a scream, especially when Coran had turned, his face peppered with the vicious looking animals, doing his best to smile through the pain.

 

“They’re called,” Coran spat out some ridiculous name that Lance couldn’t have been expected to remember or repeat. “They’re supposed to clean any room the best it can be cleaned, even of bad memories or feelings!” He said, sounding a bit like a salesman. Maybe even like he was trying to convince himself it had been a good idea.

 

Lance had been forced to lead him from the room and take him to Allura. She was appalled that Coran had even had the things in his possession, not to mention used them. Lance was left utterly confused and displaced from his room. He didn't dare set foot anywhere near the control room, or maybe he would have spent time scrolling through the galaxies. From what he had heard, Hunk and Coran had fixed everything up to the best of their abilities. In Shiro’s words, “i mean, it doesn't look great, but I guess it's a miracle that it all still works.” So, instead, Lance headed for Hunk’s room.

_T-minus six hours to your arrival…_

Put simply, it was refreshing to hang out with Hunk again. It helped that they never talked about anything serious anymore, but there was something about being around an old friend. They fell into old habits without even thinking about it. Hunk worked on his little projects and nodded noncommittally in response to Lance’s long winded rants. They would insult each other light heartedly as if nothing had happened. Amongst everything else, Hunk was like a breath of fresh air.

 

Lance was explaining to Hunk that he wasn't sure that having breakfast foods thrown at him was really improving his mood at all, while Hunk tinkered with some gadget he had found around the castle. There was no need for them to fill silences between sentences or stories.Lance laid on his back on Hunk’s bed, while Hunk sat at his desk. 

 

“And, I mean, I get that Coran was trying to be helpful,” he said, wrapping up. “I just want to be able to chill in my room, y’know?” Hunk nodded, letting out a quiet, sympathetic grunt that Lance barely heard. He sighed loudly and stood up from the bed. “I should probably go, Allura will be ready for the next physical therapy thing soon.” He gestured vaguely and made his way to the door.

 

Now, Hunk put down his tools and turned to look at Lance. He had a bit of what, as far as Lance could figure it out, was the Altean equivalent of oil smeared on his right cheek and he looked genuinely concerned. Not even Lance’s own mother had as good of a stomach melting, warm, concerned look as Hunk Garrett. “Think about grabbing lunch first, Lance.” He advised before returning to his tinkering.

_T-minus four hours to your arrival…_

Lance did think about getting lunch. He thought about it long and hard but, even as he stood outside the Castle’s kitchen, he couldn't stomach the idea of eating. So, he waved awkwardly to Shiro, who was eating lunch, and moved towards the training room. His session with Allura was, again, more mentally taxing than it was physically. Even though Lance had to admit, yoga was harder than he had thought. Allura didn’t seem to be phased, chatting away contently.

 

“Pidge showed me this, you know,” she shared as she stretched herself into an ungodly position. Lance struggled to imitate her. “They used to- Lance, you have to straighten your back-” She interjected sternly. “They used to do this every Sunday with their mother.” Lance could not imagine doing yoga ever again, not to mention weekly. He frowned at his foot which was, against all laws of physics and anatomy, only a few inches in front of his face. “Anyway,” Allura finished her excited ramblings, “how have you been doing?”

 

“I’d be better if I could put down my arms.” Lance grumbled. This whole yoga thing took way more stamina than he was ready to commit to it. His arms were aching for constantly being held out straight.

 

“Lance, seriously,” Allura asked, managing to shoot Lance an impatient glare. He was pretty sure he couldn’t reciprocate the face making, he was too busy grimacing. He felt a bit dumb, he had always thought yoga was easy. 

 

“I’m seriously fine.” He responded a bit impatiently. Even if he wasn’t fine the least Allura could do was catch on that he wasn’t going to talk about it. He just wanted to forget everything, or at least pretend it didn’t happen. Everyone treating him differently made that a little harder to pull off.

 

“You need to talk about it,” Allura said, tracking with his thoughts. 

 

“No,” he answered simply, trying to copy what she was doing with her body. “Can we not do yoga?” He finally asked, his back seriously starting to ache. He wasn’t even sure if it was a healthy ache. 

 

“Fine,” Allura answered.

 

Lance evaded the rest of Allura’s questions. It was a skill he had been developing in full over the past few days. She didn’t get frustrated, just tried again after a few more stretches. Eventually she sentenced him to five laps around the training room and left. He did two then quit.

_T-minus two hours to your arrival…_

All of the leech things were out of Lance’s room, so he took refuge there. And, he didn’t intend to leave anytime soon. He sat around, mostly filling his time with being sorry for himself and spacing out. He listened to the annoying hosts on the radio, still too afraid to turn the station. Tonight was the World Series championships, and Lance wasn’t going to miss it. Again, he didn’t know too much about the sport, but even he was fairly certain it had been a long time since the Cubs had made it this far. He thought he remembered one of the announcers even saying something along the lines of seventy-one years.

 

It was at times like these that he missed Earth in the weirdest ways. It was almost daily he had to struggle with missing his family, but on days where he had nothing to do, he found himself reminiscing about all types of weird things. At that particular moment, he was thinking about how he missed CleverBot. If he had been at home right now, he could have occupied himself with messing around with the AI for the afternoon while he waited for the game later. Now, he had pretty limited choices of activity.

 

He was wrested from his thoughts by a knock on his door. Without waiting for an answer, Shiro opened the door. Lance considered making a comment about how rude that had been, but he decided better of it.

 

“Lance, are you going to eat dinner?” Shiro asked solicitously. Lance had to fight back rolling his eyes.

“Nah, I’m not really hungry.” Awkward silence. “I ate a pretty big lunch.” He lied, his tone light.

 

“Lance, I watched you walk past the dining room and not eat anything.” Shiro’s tone was shamelessly fed up. “You have to eat.”

 

“I’m not hungry,” Lance insisted.

 

“Don’t make me drag you to the dining room,” Shiro threatened, taking a few more steps into Lance’s room. Lance stood up quickly, legitimately worried about what Shiro would do. He wasn’t going to be the one to test Shiro, not over this.

 

“Okay, okay,” Lance surrendered, he watched as a bit of Shiro’s tension eased, his shoulders sagging slightly. “Jeez, dad.” Lance muttered jokingly.

_T-minus one hour to your arrival…_

The paladins dinner did not go well. Firstly, even though he was there, Lance didn’t eat. He poked at his pile of goo unceremoniously, his stomach feeling sicker and sicker the longer he sat there. The other’s made poor attempts at conversation, both with him and others and Shiro shot him the occasional death glare for not eating. With Lance feeling unwell and Coran being absent, there was no one to lighten the mood.

 

Secondly, around ten minutes in, it was over. Allura had been trying to, with the occasional help of Pidge, explain the benefits of yoga when Coran ran in, trying to catch his breath. Everything paused, everyone’s eyes on him. Lance was surprised how much better he felt, simply because everyone’s eyes were on someone else.

 

“There’s something big approaching the Castle,” Coran reported, his attention focused mostly on Allura, “about an hour away.” He huffed.

 

“What is it?” Allura asked, her uneasiness coming off as impatience. The paladins watched silently, breath held, waiting.

 

“You’re going to want to see it, Princess.” Coran advised. And then, “I think it’s Galran.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i can't believe this thing has ten chapters... yike. anyway, hope you're still enjoying. i tried to make this have at least a bit lightheartedness to break everything up. also, this chapter is just a bit longer than most so, happy tenth chapter? ig? it was kind of an accident, there was just a lot to get in.
> 
> again, thanks for reading, comments are read with love and affection, kudos are appreciated etc, etc, you know the drill~


	12. Chapter 12

_“Hand over the Galran boy. This is all we want, Paladins. If he is provided to us, we will otherwise leave your Castle and Lions be. You will be given an hour to act.”_

 

Everyone was yelling. Still around the dining table, voices were being exponentially raised to be heard over others. Lance was still sitting, with nothing much to say, and a bit appalled at what everyone else was proposing. Pidge burst into the room, still pulling on the boots of their uniform. Shiro had left to get ready immediately and, as soon as he had returned, he had advised Pidge do the same. Once they were gone, he began to argue for an excursion onto the Galran ship.

 

“It’s the kind that holds prisoners, trust me.” He had insisted as soon as Pidge had left the room. Everyone knew without an explicit statement what he was proposing.

 

“What about Keith?” Allura had asked impatiently, and then the yelling had ensued. 

 

Lance understood that the only reason Allura had asked about Keith was because she didn’t want a full scale attack on the Castle and, at that point, he had expected nothing less. In fact, he was pleasantly surprised that no one was arguing for simply handing Keith over.

 

“Fine!” Allura was shouting, “you go on your rescue mission. But I don’t know how you expect us to protect the Castle.” Shiro looked at the ground, and Lance’s stomach dropped. He already knew what Shiro was going to suggest.

 

“We wouldn’t need to if we handed over Keith.” His voice was the smallest Lance had ever heard it. Despite himself, despite everything he’d been through, Lance felt anger buzzing in his head. These were his friends, he could trust them, but they had also been Keith’s friends. 

 

“So,” now Lance stood up, speaking for the first time since the Galra’s demands had been broadcast throughout the Castle. Everyone else fell silent, watching him, wide eyed and nervous. “Pidge’s family is more important than Keith?” Lance watched as Pidge, who, to be fair, had no idea what was being discussed, flinched slightly. He might have felt bad if he could have figured out exactly what all was going through his head.

 

“Pidge’s family aren’t homicidal maniacs who are probably working with Zarkon!” Hunk yelled back, and everyone’s eyes slide to him, still just as concerned. Lance shot him a death glare.

 

“Keith was our friend!” He yelled back.

 

“Emphasis on was, Lance!” Hunk almost sounded hysterical. Shiro opened his mouth, no doubt to intervene, but Hunk wasn’t done. “He’s tried to kill you two times, or did you forget?” Lance flinched at this, and Shiro spoke up.

 

“Hunk!” He yelled, snapping everyone back to reality. “Go get your gear.” He ordered, and then turned to Lance. “Look, I get that you don’t like this,” he was all business as Hunk slunk from the room, “I don’t either, trust me. But, it’s the best option we have. We won’t hand him over on a silver platter, we’ll ask them to come get him, if Keith is still-” Shiro stopped himself from saying whatever he was going to and rerouted. “Maybe Keith will get a chance to fight back.”

 

“And you get a window to look for Pidge’s family,” Lance was already moving towards the door. “Good strategy, fearless leader.” He spat, shouldering his way through the doors. 

 

“Lance-” Whatever Shiro had to say was cut off by the door slamming behind Lance. He was glad, he didn’t want to hear another word. 

 

He stormed down to his room, where he kept his own uniform. The others usually put theirs back up, but Lance was now thankful he had never been so organized. The last thing he wanted to think about was running into Hunk on the way to the holding room. He shoved on his boots with a bit more vigor than was probably necessary and, for the first time in months, got out his bayard. A little part of him, which was easy enough to ignore, realized what he was doing was ludicrous, but the majority of him didn’t care. He wasn’t letting anyone get to Keith, not until he understood what was going on. 

 

He peeked out of his door before making his way into the hallway, still reluctant to be seen by the others. He planned his route so that he could best avoid the others, and made his way back to the hall of airlocks. He regarded Keith’s airlock from his spot at the end of the hallway.

 

“I can’t believe I’ll probably miss the beginning of the World Series Championship for this,” he muttered under his breath. Admittedly, he had meant for it to lighten his mood, if only marginally, but it did no such thing. 

 

He approached Keith’s airlock begrudgingly, not daring to look inside. He had only come to it when Keith was asleep since their last interaction. He didn’t want to see Keith’s yellow eyes staring back at him, so he turned his back to the airlock, holding his bayard, ready for a fight.

 

“Lance?” Keith’s muffled voice came from behind him, but he didn’t turn around. “Lance what are you doing?” Lance didn’t respond, he stared at the wall across from him. “Shiro already told me the plan, you’re not supposed to be here.” Lance blinked in surprise, once, twice. Shiro had done what?

 

“Shiro talked to you?” He asked over his shoulder, still not turning. He realized now it wasn’t anger but fear that was keeping his eyes glued to the wall opposite him. 

 

“Yeah,” Keith answered simply. There was a pause and then, “you’re supposed to be with Allura.”

 

“‘Never told me that.” Lance grunted, a bit indignantly. Shiro had kept Keith more up-to-date on the plans than him.

 

“Now you know.” Keith’s response was short and awkward. “You should go.” Lance realized that they hadn’t had a real conversation like this in ages. He realized Keith sounded like himself. He shook off the thought.

 

“They’re going to hand you over.”

 

“I know.” Keith’s resignation was like a punch to the stomach. Not excitement, not fear, just weary acceptance. Lance turned around.

 

Keith was standing at the door of his airlock, his brows pushed together in concern. When Lance turned, he pushed himself back, making an obvious effort to keep his expression impassive. His eyes weren’t yellow.

 

“I’m staying here.” Lance insisted, turning back around before he was sick. He didn’t know what to think, he didn’t quite understand what was going on. There was only one thing on his mind, other than the annoying thought that was teasing his brain. He wasn’t leaving Keith here. The small thought in his brain, the only other one there, was the same question he’d been asking himself since he’d come out of the healing pod. _Who put Keith back in the airlock? Who put me in the healing pod?_

 

“Fine, stay here and get killed.” At this, Lance found himself smiling.

 

“Don’t even bother to try that reverse psychology bullshit on me, Kogane.” He reprimanded almost playfully. He knew part of the reason he was at liberty to feel okay at the moment was because he had nothing to lose. He was almost thankful for that. 

 

Keith, apparently, decided to take Lance at his word on this, and promptly shut up. An agitated silence settled between them until another message from the Glaran ship rocked the Castle of Lions.

 

_”Any resistance to our taking the boy will be met with force. Thank you, Paladins of Voltron, for your cooperation.”_

 

Lance readjusted his grip on his bayard and swallowed hard. “Lance,” Keith’s voice made him jump. “You’ve got to go to Allura.” Lance opted to ignore Keith, he was sure he had long since made it clear that he wasn’t leaving. The silence resurfaced, until the beat of boots against the floor became audible.

 

Lance wiped one of his palms on his pants, and readjusted his grip again. His heart raced along with the rhythm of the soldiers’ approach. He took a deep breath right as Prorok rounded the corner, followed by a small army of Galran foot soldiers. The reality that Lance had no chance of winning this fight slowly solidified in his mind. But, it didn’t shake him. He had nothing to lose.

 

Lance expected to be told to stand aside, in fact he had been counting on it. He was ready for a badass start to what was sure to be a not-so-badass ass kicking. Instead, all Prorok did was laugh.

 

“Are you meant to be my little distraction?” Lance didn’t appreciate the Galran commander’s amused tone. Lance tightened his grip on his bayard.

 

“No,” he decided he could work with this. He could still make his badass moment happen. “I’m here to be,” maybe he couldn’t. “Your stopper?” He sighed in exasperation. He wasn’t any good at going off script on comebacks. “Look, I’m here to stop you, okay?”

 

Prorok’s amused expression didn’t leave his face for a second. “Don’t worry,” he turned to his soldiers, mouth turned up in a confident smirk. “I think I can handle this on my own.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ugh,,, i'm sorry for the short chapter. it's been a wild week.


	13. Chapter 13

Lance had never fully understood how the bayards worked. The best way he could think to explain it was that they somehow knew exactly what their paladin needed. The first time Lance had ever touched his bayard, it took the shape of a gun. It had known he was a marksman. Now, facing Prorok, it took the form of a dagger of sorts, ready for fast paced, close range combat. Admittedly, not Lance’s strong suit. 

 

“Paladin,” Prorok’s own weapon, Galran tech that resembled a sword, gave off purple light that illuminated the faces of his soldiers eerily. “I will not warn you again. If you step down and hand over the boy, you will be left unharmed.”

 

Lance tightened his grip on his bayard and swallowed down bile. _Ok, Kogane, you owe me big time if we get out of this,_ he let out the breath he had been holding in. “And I’ll leave you unharmed if you go home.” He paused long enough for Prorok to open his mouth for a smart ass remark. “See? Neither of us is gonna bend, so let’s just get this over with, shall we?” And then, they were fighting.

 

In the dark, the light of their swords cast long, darting shadows as they moved. It was immediately obvious to Lance that Prorok’s confidence had not been misguided. Lance parried one of his strikes, but just barely. He was vaguely aware of the strides he was making backwards towards Keith’s airlock. His back to a wall.

 

The thought that he would have to try a new strategy didn’t fully cement in his mind until his foot hit the wall as he took another step. A split second passed, he weighed his options. Dodging to the side meant leaving Keith unguarded. It also meant saving his own skin. He deflected another strike so it only grazed his shoulder and dove out of the way. He was fairly sure he had Prorok distracted enough. 

 

He was wrong. He came out of his roll to see Prorok slam the button that opened the airlock with his hand that wasn’t bearing down on Lance with a sword. Keith was free.

 

“No!” Lance yelled, and this time it was him who was distracted enough. Prorok’s sword seared through his left arm like it was nothing. Lance noticed, in an odd, weightless moment of pure adrenaline, that he was lucky he still had a left hand at all. 

 

He did his best to stand, steadying himself with his injured arm and wincing. He deflected another blow, the best he could manage was defense. All the while, he didn’t stop eying the open airlock, waiting for Keith to come at him, claws bared. He didn’t. The longer no one emerged from the airlock, the more nervous Lance got. The more nervous he got the more reckless his fighting was. 

 

Prorok landed another blow, this one with the blunt of his sword on Lance’s head. He stumbled back. _Why weren’t the soldiers moving to get Keith?_

 

He blocked another swing of Prorok’s sword, just barely. Lance could feel that he was slipping. He lashed out, desperate to finish the fight before he lost all composure. Prorok parried and went in for his own strike. Lance yelped in pain, but even in the moment of white hot pain, he was fully aware of his luck. The sword only grazed his side, but it was enough to make him drop his bayard. He looked up, vision blurred with either pain or tears he couldn't tell, ready to die. 

 

But, Keith saved him. At first, the best he could do was to stare in shock. The first coherent thought he had was that Keith wasn't attacking him. He was fighting Prorok. Then, somehow through everything else, his second thought just so happened to be registering the look of utter shock on Prorok’s face. He had been expecting Keith to be on his side. To be fair, so had Lance. 

 

He watched, too shocked, too hurt, too tired to move as Keith dug his claws into Prorok with a vengeance. The element of surprise was what gave him the edge, otherwise Prorok, with his sword and countless other advantages, could have easily taken Keith. Lance sat, bleeding profusely and thinking these things. He watched as Keith wrenched Prorok’s sword from his hands and threw it away from the both of them, he watched Prorok’s surprise melt into fear. Lance didn’t blame him. He had been on the receiving end of Keith's malice, too. 

 

“Lance get the soldiers!” Keith’s voice broke Lance out of his stupor. He took a moment to process the order before actually standing up.

 

He held his side with his injured, left hand, wincing as he made his way to the Galran soldiers. They couldn’t so much as march without orders to do so, or at least Lance was pretty sure that’s why he was able to knock off the entire front line’s heads with no resistance. They fell slowly, spurting sparks, as he made his way to the second row. He knew he was lucky that they weren't fighting back, he was pretty sure he wouldn't win the fight if it was fair. Five soldiers left and another command was yelled from behind Lance. This time it was Prorok’s voice. 

 

The soldiers came to attention, and then advanced toward Lance. Surprised, and much less confident now, Lance scrambled backwards, tripping over the fallen soldiers behind him. He hissed in pain. 

 

“Lance!” Keith yelled and Lance turned in his direction, “damn.” He breathed. Keith was obviously exhausted, his breath plenty heavy. He was backing away from Prorok, apparently planning to help Lance. Even Lance, miserable, worn out, and hurt, could tell that was a bad idea. 

 

“Grab his sword!” Lance yelled over his shoulder, taking a solid swing at the nearest soldier. 

 

A shot of pain in his side protested his sudden movement but he ignored it. His swing took a chunk out of the drone in front of him, causing it to stagger backwards. Lance used the moment to take off its head. Four soldiers left. Lance continued backing away, more steadily now, but still going further down the corridor. He was dueling with a soldier when Keith pounced on the one to the right. Either he hadn't heard Lance or just wasn't able, but he didn't have Prorok’s sword. Lance glanced back nervously to see the Galran commander moving to stand up. He wasn't far behind them now, only a few steps. A soldier almost landed a hit and Lance stumbled back, past Prorok. 

 

He watched trying to keep two drones off of him, and trying to keep his guts inside of him, as Prorok stood, sword in hand. The bad feeling in Lance’s stomach got worse. 

 

“I’ll finish this.” Prorok ordered, the soldiers immediately stepping down. If he had said this two minutes ago, Lance would have thought he had a death wish. But now Keith wasn't looking so good either, and Lance definitely wasn't going to be their saving grace. He glanced quickly in Keith’s direction. 

 

“Keith, get behind me.” He ordered, already backing up further down the hallway. 

 

“What-” They were already past the airlocks. The hallway was lined with escape pods now, all with ejection buttons blinking a lazy blue. 

 

“You don't have a weapon,” Lance yelled, trying to sound in charge, trying to sound confident. Like a leader. “Get behind me.” Trying to sound like he believed they could get out of this alive.

 

Keith conceded, only seconds before Prorok made his move. Despite his own injuries, he advanced quickly, barely giving Lance enough time to prepare. The fight was no longer honorable in any respect, all and any cheap shots were welcome and both sides shamelessly took advantage of it. Prorok fighting for his cause, for his station in the Galran army. Lance fighting for his life, for Keith.

 

Even though his shoulder ached, his arm pulsed with pain, his his side stung fiercely, Lance didn't dare to coddle his wounds. He knew one slip up could cost him his life. Could cost him Keith. This battle, he realized, was a purely selfish one. Keith would be no more a prisoner of the Galra than he was a prisoner of the Paladins of Voltron. As far as Lance knew, since he would be kin to them, the Galran army might have treated Keith better. But, frankly, Lance didn't give a damn. He wasn't giving up Keith. 

 

Lance was too focused on clumsily deflecting another strike to stop Prorok from reaching over and opening the escape pod to the left of them. But, once he did, the action distracted Lance for long enough for Prorok to get into position. Lance didn't need to wonder long, Prorok’s plan was fairly obvious: He was going to corral Lance into the escape pod. For a moment, he panicked slightly, looking for the best route out, but when he found none he buckled down. His only option was to stand his ground. 

 

This plan didn't last long. When it came down to being skewered or backing into the pod, the choice wasn't hard. Lance fell back into the pod, and Keith threw himself back into action, from behind Prorok. Suddenly, all three of them were in the escape pod, desperately clawing and jabbing and trying to make it out alive. As Lance had come to expect, it didn't work out in his favor. 

 

In a flash of claws and swords, glowing and otherwise, both him and Keith were in the escape pod and Prorok was decidedly not. Lance, had he not sustained at least two distinctly new injuries during the struggle, might have tried harder to correct this but, instead, he sat, leaned against the console, which had been sufficiently ruined during the fight, and watched Prorok wearily. The Galran commander’s hatred was plainly written on his features, but there was also the smug smirk of victory. He wasn’t leaving the fight unscathed though with, most notably, a gash across his face. It made Lance feel slightly better. 

 

Prorok spit out a tooth on the floor in front of Lance before reaching for the button to eject the pod. Keith wasn’t done fighting, and tried to launch himself forward. All that resulted was him lying on the floor and writhing in pain. Lance looked down to see a wound in Keith’s leg now gushing blood onto the floor. Lance wondered, feeling very far off, if Keith would bleed out before they crashed landed on some god forsaken planet. He wondered if they ever would land. Space was infinite, there was no guarantee they would run into a planet’s gravitational pull, and they _would_ have to happen upon it. The control panel was fried, with more than a few gashes running through it, Lance was sure he would have to be pretty lucky to find a button that was still intact, not to mention worked. And he wasn’t going to kid himself, luck was not something he had.

\- - -

Prorok was furious. If he were any less so, he would have cleaned up his face, or respectfully waited to be let into the throne room, but instead, he barged in, gash across his nose still bleeding. The damn half breed had given it to him. The damn half breed he had been told would be on his side.

 

“Zarkon!” He yelled, not bothering to bow. Zarkon sat, as he always did, above it all. Above the action, the carnage, believing himself to be above his soldiers. “You promised the boy would not put up a struggle!” 

 

“You failed me again,” Zarkon’s impassive tone only served to further Prorok’s anger. “But, so did Haggar.” He sighed lazily, as if the situation were but a slight inconvenience. 

 

“I want an explanation,” Prorok demanded, then added, “and I want my station back.” Zarkon rose an eyebrow at this, and Prorok found himself pleased. At least he had his attention now.

 

“We’ll see about that in time, Prorok. For now, try not to test my patience.” Zarkon advised and Prorok knew better than to proceed. “Haggar lost control of the red paladin.” Prorok resisted spitting back a disrespectful retort. He could have told Zarkon that much. “As you know, her powers are of a suggestive nature, not mind control,” Zarkon continued. “She pushed the boy too far with a request to kill one of the other paladins.” The King waved his hand as if this were trivial. Prorok was still taken aback by the fact, he couldn’t imagine that the red paladin’s betrayal had been so severe and his little friend had still fought so hard to save him. He couldn’t help but wonder who it was that the half breed had attacked. That he had almost killed. 

 

“And I was not informed of this because…?” He questioned, possibly a bit too facetiously. 

 

“We couldn’t seem to get a transmission through,” Zarkon’s tone was dangerously sarcastic. Prorok didn’t speak again. “However, you will not be punished because you did not know. Additionally, the Paladins of Voltron are still split up, so I suppose it was not a complete failure.” Zarkon shrugged, his attitude exuding disinterest. 

 

“The Castle of Lions escaped through a wormhole, they could be galaxies away from their fellow paladins,” Prorok said, allowing himself a slightly boastful tone. He had made the best of his circumstances. “They are without a way to track or find them.”

 

If he wasn’t mistaken, and he thought that he must have been, he saw a small smile spread across Zarkon’s face. “Good, I will keep Haggar working on the Galran boy’s mind, and we will dispatch a search unit soon enough.” 

 

A pause.

 

“You have done well, Prorok. Return to your men.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh boy. this chapter was done in a day, bc i'm struggling, so i hope it's still good. but it was still long, bc i needed to get so much covered. ugh. anyway, hope you enjoyed, and thanks for reading!!


	14. Chapter 14

Surprisingly, crashing into a foreign planet at nearing terminal velocity was nothing considering everything Lance had been through in the past weeks. In fact, even as he found he couldn’t move his arm, which he was fairly certain had broken on impact, he was just happy he was alive. He was happy that escape pods tended to be built for crash landings rather than control, he was happy it had been a planet’s gravitational field they’d run into before a star’s, or blackhole’s, or whatever else you could find in space. He blacked out when the vessel hit land anyway. He had tried to get to one of the seats in time, but he’d lost his chance dragging Keith to one and fastening him in. As he woke up, body aching from being thrown around like a ragdoll for god knew how long, he wondered bitterly exactly why he had helped Keith at all.

 

“Lance!” Keith was calling from his seat near the front of the escape pod, which was tilted at a strange angle. It only made it harder for Lance to get his bearings. His head was pounding and, again, he couldn’t move his right arm. Not to mention all the other injuries Prorok had inflicted in their spat earlier.

 

“I’m okay,” he groaned from his spot sandwiched into the corner where the floor met the wall. He attempted to push himself up with his left arm, grimacing as pain shot through his arm and side. He could only drag himself into a sitting position before needing a break. “Relatively.” He added ruefully, letting the constant ebbing pain all over his body ease before moving again.

 

At the angle the vessel had landed, there was an incline between him and Keith. He groaned inwardly at the idea of going up it. He had to admit, though, at least he could walk. Lance worried that, if they couldn’t find anything to help him, Keith wouldn't be walking for a good while, if ever. The two of them had had a good chunk of time together in the escape pod before they had crashed, but most of that time had been spent freaking out and in awkward silence.

 

Lance had watched through the window in the pod’s door as the Castle of Lions had slipped away through a wormhole. Now he was embarrassed to admit it, but he’s screamed and pounded at the glass as if they would hear him and stop. Then, he had taken sometime to cry. Through all of this Keith had sat, quiet and perfectly still. He didn't talk until Lance was wrapping his leg with a bit of cloth he’d torn from his sweat soaked undershirt. 

 

“Lance I’m sorry,” he hadn’t made eye contact, but instead had focused on Lance’s hands. They were working methodically, wrapping Keith’s leg what would have seemed mechanically if it weren’t for how gentle he was being. “You didn’t have to save me.”

 

“You think I was saving you?” Lance also didn’t look up from his work. He easily could have. Wrapping a wound wasn’t something you needed to keep a sharp eye on, especially once you got the rhythm of it. 

 

“Wha-” Keith started slightly. Lance ignored it. “Yes? What else would you have been doing?”

 

“Oh,” Lance realized Keith had misunderstood the question. “I mean, you didn’t want the Galra to take you.” Lance rephrased, tying off the wrapping a bit too roughly. Keith hissed slightly in pain and, if Lance’s past month or so hadn’t been so royally shitty, compliments of Keith, Lance might have felt bad.

 

“Yeah, I was scared shitless.” Keith laughed slightly, to mask a bit of the pain, Lance suspected. “But I was also ready to go with them.” He added something else under his breath that Lance couldn’t quite make out.

 

“You make no sense, Kogane.” Lance complained, and pushed himself up against the wall of the escape pod. They both sat there, staring at each other, battered and beat and glad to be alive for however many more moments they had. “A few days ago you were trying to rip my throat out.”

 

“And you make sense?” Keith rose an eyebrow, his usual dumb smirk pulling at the edges of his lips. Something in the pit of Lance’s stomach ached bittersweetly at the sight. “Everyone else was ready to drop me,” Keith added vehemently, “and rightfully so. But here you are, all of a sudden ready to give me a third chance.”

 

“Eh, what can I say?” Lance shrugged and immediately regretted it, wincing at the sudden pain in his arm and side. “I’m the king of giving too many chances.” 

 

Now, after the crash, dragging himself up towards Keith, he had to admit that wasn’t everything. Although, it probably was a big part. He’d already given Keith two chances he hadn’t deserved. Two chances that had almost gotten Lance killed. Before he had been naive and maybe, just maybe, a bit love blind. But, this time, he had seen Keith defend him. This time he had a sneaking suspicion he knew exactly who had put him in the healing pod. Exactly who had saved his life.

 

“Keith, man, are you good?” He asked a bit breathlessly. It was hard to catch his breath with a persistent stabbing pain in his side. 

 

“Am _I_ good?” Keith sounded offended. Lance was a bit taken aback as he pulled himself around Keith’s chair to see him. He was sitting, looking a bit jostled, but other than that no more injured than he had been. Despite himself, Lance felt relief wash over him. “What about you? You idiot! What were you thinking not getting into one of the seats quicker than that? You could have died!”

 

“You couldn’t walk, I had to-” Lance tried to justify his actions, but was cut off. Keith, obviously distraught, was not done. In a weird, nostalgic way, Keith’s distressed scolding reminded Lance of Yamile and home.

 

“If I couldn’t walk how the hell do you think I would have gotten around without you after the crash?” Keith exclaimed. “Honestly, you’re just so-” he huffed, trying to think of the right word. “So- ugh, you’re just impossible Sanchez.”

 

Lance laughed softly, almost fondly. He tried to convince himself it was because he was thinking of home. “Keith chill, I’m okay.” He insisted. He tried to peek at the brave new world outside of their pod, but the front windows were charred beyond being of any more use. Falling through an atmosphere does that sometimes, Lance supposed. 

 

“Really?” Keith challenged and Lance rolled his eyes. “Because the angle your right arm is bent at would beg to differ.” Lance looked down at his arm a bit sheepishly.

 

“I’m going to see if I can get the door to open.” He said, pulling himself up on the back of Keith’s chair. Once he was standing, he listened to Keith’s complaints as the world swam slightly around him. He unbuckled Keith, mostly because he didn’t have to worry about him going very far anyway, and made his way back down to the door.

 

The button intended to open it was probably the only intact button in the entire vessel. Lance reached out to press it with his left arm, wincing slightly at the ache of moving it. It occurred to him only then, for some strange reason, that he didn’t quite remember how to make a sling. He distantly worried about figuring out how to set his right arm correctly before it began to heal wrong. The door slid open easily, but half of it was buried in dirt. Lance let out a long sigh, knowing he would have to pull himself up to get out. 

 

“Good news,” Lance called back to Keith. “The door is open and we’re not dying because of lack of oxygen or presence of toxic gasses or anything.” Lance took a deep breath as if to prove it to himself. He had left his helmet on the floor where he had wrapped Keith’s leg. This had been dumb for several reasons, including the small issue of it becoming a basketball sized projectile during the crash, bouncing around the cockpit feverishly. Of course, it also would have been wise for him to wear it when he opened the door, but he had decided it would have seriously sucked if he’d opened the door, survived because of his helmet, and then turned around to find Keith dead. So, he had abstained from wearing it at all. 

 

“Okay,” Keith responded. “I figured that much. What all can you see?”

 

“Not much,” Lance shrugged, standing on his tiptoes to see if he could catch a glimpse of anything more than the red sky. “The sky’s freaky red,” he reported, “but I can’t see much else because we’re half buried in out skid marks on this side.”

 

“Damn,” Keith breathed. “Can we still get out?” He asked.

 

“Yeah,” Lance turned and decided to walk back to Keith. Pulling himself up and through the small opening at the top of the door wasn’t something he was ready for yet. “It’ll just be a bit of a climb is all.” He plopped down on the second seat, giving himself a moment to breathe. When he looked up, he saw Keith smiling toothily at him. “What?” He asked, a bit unsettled. He wasn’t sure what there was to be smiling about, and being optimistic was usually his job between the two of them.

 

“Nothing,” Keith shook his head, looking away from Lance. “Nothing, I’m just glad to be alive.”

 

Lance stared, took a moment to process exactly what Keith had just said, and then smiled too. Even after everything that had happened, even with nothing making sense, with his arm bent at a weird angle, and his feelings more than all mixed up, he was glad to be alive too.

 

“Don’t think this gets you off the hook, Kogane.” Lance warned, his tone suddenly stern. His moment was kind of ruined, though, because he couldn’t quite stop himself from smiling. “I still need to know exactly what the hell is going on with you. Two times is enough nearly getting my guts ripped out by you.”

 

Keith’s smile fell from his face effortlessly. He looked miserable, he looked sorry. Lance found himself feeling sorry for bringing it up. He should have let the two of them be happy to be alive a while longer.

 

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” Keith shrugged. “All you need to know is once we’re out of here, and get help for your injuries, I’m leaving. You shouldn’t try to follow me, just let me get away from you so I don’t hurt you again.”

 

Lance blinked once. Twice, thrice. “Come again?” He asked finally. “You have gotta be shitting me.” He would have thrown up his hands in frustration if he could have. “I did not just put my ass on the line to keep you safe just so you could pull that shit. I want you to try me. Because I’ve seen some shit over the last month that I want explained and, you know what, I think I’m owed a damn explanation. So you had better start talking.”

 

Keith stared in wide eyed shock for a moment before recovering.

 

“Lance I’m sorry,” he shivered slightly. It was strange, especially since they had opened the door, the pod had been anything but cold. “I couldn’t-” he swallowed hard. “I couldn’t keep her out. She was _in_ my head, and I didn’t know how to get her out. She was- well, it wasn’t like she was in control- it was more like she just kept chipping away at me. At everything that made me angry, at everything that made me insecure. The fact that none of you, none of the paladins trusted me anymore. The fact that I didn’t even know what I was.” Keith was breathing heavily now, his eyes beginning to tear up. Lance wasn’t entirely sure what Keith was talking about, but he didn’t want to stop Keith from talking, just in case he didn’t ever start again. “I can remember all of it. Every single thing I did, every single thing I said. Every time I hurt you. I’m so sorry. But I also remember every baseball game, I remember the way you were always there, the way you were always ready to forgive. The way you constantly proved that there was a reason to keep fighting for control back.”

 

“Who are you talking about? Who is ‘she’?” Lance asked nervously when Keith stopped for breath. Keith looked up, eyes red with tears. 

 

“Haggar.” Lance furrowed his eyebrows. 

 

“What do you mean? I don’t get it.” He said, his mind racing. His heart racing. 

 

“She was inside my head. I don’t know how, but I couldn’t get her out. And when she finally left, she just came right back. I kept hurting you. I didn’t want to. Please, Lance, please believe that I never wanted to hurt you.”

 

Lance took a deep breath. “How do I know you’re not lying?” Keith was very good at lying. Lance had learned that lesson the hard way. 

 

Lance watched as hope faded from Keith’s eyes, although he didn’t realize it. “You don’t.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey and sorry for the half-week holiday. i just didn't have the chapter done on time, and with thanksgiving and being at family's and everything, i just decided to chill and get it out saturday instead of the usual wednesday. in theory, i'll have the next chapter out next wednesday, per the usual schedule. anyway, happy holidays to everyone, i hope your thanksgiving wasn't a total mess! and, of course, i hope you enjoyed this chapter.


	15. Chapter 15

After a good while of awkward silence the consensus was reached that time to sleep was in order. Lance had long since stripped off his paladin uniform, and offered it to Keith as a sad excuse for a blanket. Keith had turned him down but Lance didn't blame him; it wasn’t cold anyway. Lance stretched out across the floor of the escape pod near the door. he bunched up his uniform so it acted as the universe’s stiffest pillow, and felt the warmth rolling in from the outside. Some part of him, deep down, was reminded of Cuba. Of the miserably hot summer days, a window somewhere that wouldn't close, noisy fans drowning out Saturday morning cartoons. He would have liked to think the nearly subconscious sense of nostalgia was what lulled him to sleep, but he knew it was more likely exhaustion, plain and simple.

 

He did dream of much, he suspected he was to tired to lend any energy to that. He woke what he could only assume was a while later, much more aware of exactly how hungry he was. The light outside still hadn’t begun to fade, and Lance wondered idly, too tired and sore to actually move, how long days were on this planet. It occurred to him that there were nearly infinite things that could be different about this planet that they’d only been lucky not to run into on Altea. Finally, after a few moments of running through worst case scenarios in his head, he stood to check on Keith. The other paladin was still out cold, which was almost reassuring to Lance. He was pretty sure he hadn’t gotten all the sleep he needed, and it was nice to think that maybe Keith would. 

 

Because Keith was still asleep, and because he didn’t want to face another long bout of awkward silence, and mostly because he was starving, Lance finally convinced himself to venture outside. He pulled on his uniform back over his undershirt and jeans. Neither had fared well and, even with the uniform on, Lance smelled distinctly of sweat and blood. It was not a smell he cared for. Before leaving he thought about leaving a note or something, just in case Keith woke up before he could make it back, just in case he didn’t make it back, but he realized he didn’t have anything to write with or on. So, he made his way to the half buried door way, and braced himself for pulling himself up. 

 

His first attempt was exactly successful, but it did help him get a feel for just how much it was going to hurt. He put his left hand on the surface of the planet, which was about a foot above his head, and tried to heave himself up. A tearing pain in his side, along with a searing pain in his arm stopped him in his tracks. He fell backwards onto the floor, eyes tearing up in pain. He laid there, rolled into a ball, trying to rally enough motivation to keep going. Eventually, once he had fully thought through how miserable it would be to starve to death, he made a second attempt. This time, he chipped away at the soil until he had two things resembling foot holds. The first one was about a foot off the floor, and the other one a foot above the last. The soil had been fairly earth like, only brittle than loose like soil back home might have been. He stuck his first foot in the first foothold and used his left arm to pull himself up. His vision swam a bit with the pain, but he ignored it, trying to find the other foothold with his right foot. Finally he found it and hoisted himself up. Once he did, he could see outside of the escape pod.

 

The scene outside was like a strange, negative copy of Earth. The sky was a deep red, and the ground was a spongy, purple substance, until it gave way to the black, brittle soil. Lance stared for a moment, trying not to get caught up in taking everything in and failing. A strange band of innumerable, small, white rocks ran across the sky, and in the far distance Lance could have sworn he saw a few strange creatures, barely dots on the horizon. He squinted at them hopefully before finally giving up, taking a deep breath, and pulling himself out of the pod. It was everything he could do not to scream and he dragged himself onto the ground. 

 

When he was finally out, his first order of business was to dry heave for what felt like forever. His stomach convulsing, and attempting to push out anything in it in protest to the pain. But, there was nothing, so Lance sat, hunched over, hacking up air. When that was finally over, he laid back down, and stared at the unfamiliar sky. He studied everything, the little rocks, the expansive blood orange and brown clouds, until it became very obvious that he wasn’t going to feel any better. With this realization, he forced himself to stand. A bit of the pain in his side and arm had eased, but he was pretty sure he had at least reopened the wound on his arm, if not his side.

 

He hobbled toward the dots on the horizon, completely resigned to the idea of killing them and finding a way to cook them. He didn’t stop to think that they could have been deadly, or that he had no idea what was flammable on this planet, or if anything was. But, as he made his way in their direction, it became obvious he didn’t need to worry. There were several of the creatures, but not because they were a wild herd, they were a part of a farm of some sort. Beyond them was a small settlement of ten or so squat buildings. Lance’s eyes lit with excitement, and his stomach, as if on cue, let out a long growl. 

 

The walk over was uneventful, there were a few exceptionally painful steps, where a new wound was discovered, or something else opened further. Lance decided not to think about them, though. Finally he had a goal, there was actual hope. It occurred to Lance, as he got close enough to the village to begin to make out details, that he would have no idea how to communicate. He had left his helmet, which had all types of fancy tech that Lance was sure involved a translator somewhere, back in the pod. He quiet cursed himself, but he wasn’t about to turn around. He wondered if the people on this planet even got hungry, or if they were hostile. He was sure they would have to meet some off-the-reservation weird aliens eventually, and it would be just his luck to meet them when he didn’t have diplomat extraordinaire Allura there to mediate. Despite his worries, he pushed forward. 

 

When he got to the village he found himself at a bit of a loss. The buildings were squat, and made of some shiny, black material that almost resembled the soil. They were lined up on either side of a road of some sorts that was marked by yellow lines. It was almost like a weird version of a small, wild west town from earth. A few had signs, but they made no sense. The language used on them was a pictograph of some sort, it almost reminded Lance of Arabic. He decided that the signs must have met that the buildings were private residences, so he decided that was where he would start. 

 

He approached the first building with a sign tentatively. Admittedly, the complete lack of noise and movement was freaking Lance out more than a little. He knocked and waited.

 

A small, tired alien answered the door. It was a few feet smaller than Lance, but a bit wider. It was roundish, with no definition between a head or body. It’s yellow color almost made it resemble a lemon. It had two arms, but no legs. Instead, it seemed to be able to slide across the ground. It had four eyes, all without pupils or irises, two on either side of it’s face. It’s small, circular mouth was stretched open in what almost looked like a yawn. Once it was done, it’s mouth turned down in a frown. Lance realized he was staring.

 

“Sorry,” he mumbled, looking away. The little alien let out a series of annoyed clicks. It was not surprised that it couldn’t understand him. Lance frowned. He tried waving. It squinted it’s eyes. “I need help.” Lance said slowly, feeling like an idiot and gesturing at himself.

 

“Ineelp.” The alien imitated sourly, pointing at Lance. He blinked once in surprise before realizing that it was asking his name.

 

“No, I’m Lance.” He corrected just as sourly.

 

“Nome-ance.” Lance frowned again.

 

“Lance.” He said slowly, pointing to himself.

 

“Lass.” The alien repeated back. Lance opened his mouth to protest, but he wasting time. He decided to move on. So, he nodded and the alien nodded back, it’s entire body swaying up and down. It let out a series of strange clicks and pointed to itself. Lance did his best to repeat it. The alien looked utterly offended.

 

This process played over several times before the alien, obviously convince Lance was dumb, gave up. “Ineelp.” It pointed at itself again.

 

“Ineelp?” Lance asked. “You want me to call you Ineelp?” It nodded again, it’s entire body moving all the while giving Lance a disdainful look. Lance shook it off. He rubbed his stomach. “I’m hungry. Do you have food?” He asked slowly.

 

Ineelp stared at him, wide eyed. Lance made eating motions. This seemed to register with Ineelp as Lance was promptly led inside and sat at a table that was just too small for him. He sat on the floor as there were no chairs and watched as Ineelp hustled around what appeared to be a bar of some sorts. The entire building was some kind of restaurant, with six tables set inside, and a small counter for paying and receiving food. As Lance sat and watched Ineelp work, he felt oddly shitty that he had failed to pronounce Ineelp’s real name.

 

Ineelp came back with a small, brown plate-like disc filled with strange red blocks of food, and a small device. They sat the device down before the plate a tapped a few buttons. They let out another long string of clicks and made a motion toward their mouth.

 

“You want me to eat that?” Lance asked, a bit shocked. It looked expensive, and was definitely more high tech than anything he had expected to see. But, as soon as the words left his mouth, the machine whirred and let out it’s own set of clicks. After it was done Ineelp scrambled to take it away from Lance. After they had it safely in their grasp, they clicked what seemed like commands to the smooth device. It whirred again, and then spoke.

 

“Language: English. Translation: active. Please speak.” Lance stared at it with wide eyes before reacting.

 

“This thing is a translator?” He asked and the device relayed his sentence. Ineelp responded, and so did the machine.

 

“Of course.” Even the machine somehow managed to sound like it thought Lance was dumb.

 

“Oh.” He took a moment to process everything before what he was there for reoccurred to him. Ineelp laid the plate in front of him.

 

“Eat.”

 

Lance did. He tried to speak, but he was so hungry that once he began eating, he couldn’t stop. Once the plate was finished, which only took a few minutes, he immediately began to speak.

 

“I need help. My friend and I crashed here, and we’re both hurt. His leg is really messed up so he couldn’t come with me, but he needs food too.” The other dialect took much longer to get through the words than Lance had. When it was done Ineelp squinted their eyes again.

 

“You are from the crash site?” The device finally translated.

 

“Yes.” Lance answered simply. 

 

“I will need to ask the others. For now please stay here, I will get more food.” Ineelp stood up. “You must meet the leaders. They were interested in your crash. We will help you.”

 

There was quiet as they prepared more food. Then, from the behind the counter they let out a few more clicks. The device, “You are not with the Galran Empire?”

 

Lance stared for a moment. Then slowly, “No, we are paladins of Voltron.”

 

Ineelp’s eyes widened in recognition before the device had even translated. They immediately set down their plate, smiling widely and moving quickly towards Lance.

 

“Lass! Lass!” They grabbed his hand and, with a lot more strength than Lance would have thought they possessed, pulled him out the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this is a day late and probably really shitty, but i'm a hot mess and sick and dying and aaahhhh. anyway, here's a chapter, whether its good or not is, uh, not important. hopefully the next one is better, and hopefully u can bear with me while i get my shit together. it's gettin' real y'all.


	16. Chapter 16

On the way to meet with Ineelp’s Council (the names of things didn't translate nearly as well, so Lance had took to naming them after Ineelp before too long) Lance insisted he needed to go back to the crash site. He wanted his helmet, and all the technology included. He wanted his own translating system. He wanted Keith. But, the translator had been left behind in Ineelp’s excitement, and Lance’s demands were only met with excited chirps from his alien friend. 

The small issue of Keith’s Galran appearance was also at the forefront of Lance’s mind. It would be impossible to prove they were paladins but it probably wouldn't be a stretch to assume their allegiance based on Keith’s appearance. Just like all of the other paladins had. Lance still wasn't entirely convinced that that assumption would be incorrect, at least in Keith’s case, but that didn't mean Lance wouldn't appreciate the benefit of the doubt. 

The Council Building was a squat thing, just short enough that Lance had to bow his head slightly the entire time he was inside. At some point, some part of his wandering mind thought fondly that, if Keith were there, he probably wouldn’t have had to stoop down at all. The Council Members stood quietly in rows, all facing one of them, their leader, Lance presumed. It was oddly similar to pictures of the US Senate Lance had seen in civics and economics. A flush of their strange language rushed through the room when Lance entered with Ineelp, each one turning to the one next to them. The leader called their people to order. Lance watched, eyes wide. 

He had never quite grown accustomed to the idea that aliens were real, not to mention that he would have first hand experience with them. He wasn’t a conspiracy nut like Pidge, like he got the feeling Keith was. Both of them were so quick to believe anything, Pidge had spent plenty a night nerding out to Lance about the opportunities that they would be presented with, knowing about alien life. Or something like that. It wasn’t that it freaked Lance out, he was just always afraid he would mess something up and start an intergalactic war.

Finally, a translator was turned on, and the sound of English snapped Lance into reality. Distantly, the thought occurred to Lance that he could have held this entire conversation in Spanish just the same. It was a strange thing to think at the time, and Lance decided it was better to stick with English just in case.

“Welcome Lass of Voltron” The leader spoke. He was still short, but his skin was brighter than Ineelp’s. “We are honored to be visited by you, although your means of arrival were unorthodox.” Lance stared. Ineelp had been intelligent, but it was becoming increasingly obvious to Lance that he was by far the dumbest form of life on the planet. 

“I don’t mean to, like, be rude,” Lance stammered, wondering if he should try to sound official. Wondering if he should be saying anything at all. He would have given anything to be stranded with Shiro or Allura at that moment. Even Hunk or Pidge. Lance was terrible with diplomacy, but the only other Voltron Paladin who was arguably worse was Keith. Lance could have wished as hard as he wanted that he had Keith with him, and maybe Keith’s presence would have calmed him, but Keith sure as hell wouldn’t have helped him much. “But we didn’t really mean to come here.” He paused as the translator caught up, looking for a shift of expression on the leader’s face. “We can’t help you.”

Instead of a violent, or angry response, the leader only nodded slowly. “I could have guessed. You did crash here.” Lance blinked twice in surprise. The guy did have a good point. “I want to discuss helping you. My name is-” The translator relayed a series of clicks and whistles. Lance remembered his failure to pronounce Ineelp’s name and wilted at the idea of trying again. Especially in front of their entire leading council.

Ineelp let out a low series of disdainful clicks. They sounded as if they were meant to be spoken under their breath, but the translator caught them and broadcast them across the entire room. “Don’t bother, they won’t be able to pronounce it anyway.” 

Lance opened his mouth indignantly, but decided better of letting everyone know that they weren’t pronouncing his name right either. The leader just let out what resembled a human chuckle. Lance wondered if it meant the same thing. Ineelp took a sheepish step backwards. Lance figured it must not have.

“No matter, What would it be convenient to call me, Lass?” The leader asked and Lance raised his eyebrows. He wanted to insist that he call the leader by their real name, but he didn’t have the time to learn it. He frowned deeply.

“Leader.” He shrugged, simply determined to get back to Keith as soon as possible. He wondered if Keith was still sleeping. 

Despite his rush, it still seemed to take forever to get moving. Leader referred to the session as some sort of ‘emergency session,’ but it functioned very democratically. And very slowly. First, Leader had to ask Lance what he needed, then they put it to a vote. Then, if it wasn’t unanimous, they had to find a compromise. Medical help was agreed upon with little to no hesitation. Blood had begun to seep through even Lance’s uniform on his arm and side and, even though they were completely different species, it still seemed to make the aliens uneasy. Lance wished he knew what to call them other than “aliens.” Food was also agreed upon, with the stipulation that, beyond the first meal, they have further discussion about the paladins’ intentions. Neither Lance nor Ineelp were given a vote, and they both grew restless in the back of the room. Lance watched as the small alien twitched impatiently, his small body swaying ever so slightly as the seconds passed.

Finally, once a rescue team was chosen, and everything was agreed upon, movement was made to go to the crash site. Another alien, this one with a very odd looking package of what Lance could only assume was medical supplies, and a tattoo of some sorts running from their lower left eye to the top of their head, was explaining basics to Lance. Lance almost immediately decided to call them Doc.

“You will lead us to the crash and we can help heal you and your friend. It is currently night, so we will have to wake several of the guard to accompany us. I apologize this took so long.” They stood in silence before Doc spoke up again. “Is your friend in critical condition?” They asked.

Lance explained that Keith was probably okay for the time being. He added that he still wanted to get back quickly. “He might panic without me.” Lance finished.

“Keet.” Doc repeated thoughtfully, jotting something down on a glowing tablet. And not a tablet like one might think. This too looked as if it could have been made from the dirt, except it had a faint, white glow to it. Lance watched as Docs words seeped into the tablet and disappeared. He realized Keet was Doc’s version of Keith’s name and tried to hold in a snicker.

Doc’s eyes widened considerably, shifting color slightly from one shade of blue to a brighter one. “Are you ok?” They asked, even the translator seeming to sound a bit urgent. This reaction only made Lance laugh harder, which in turn only scared Doc more.

“I’m fine,” Lance grinned, although his side ached considerably. He listened carefully to the clicks that the translator relayed. 

“What was that?” Doc asked almost cautiously. Lance was starting to get a handle on recognizing their emotions a bit better. Or at least he thought he was.

“I was laughing.” Lance explained. “You know, like when something’s funny.”

Doc let out a series of high pitched whistles, showcasing what their laughing looked like. Lance, despite being terrified of diplomacy with aliens, found it fascinating. He could get used to this.

Finally, after what seemed like forever, they set off. Lance wasn’t put in charge of leading. It was made perfectly clear that they knew exactly where the crash was. Doc explained that they had not yet been able to get an act through the Council to investigate, so they had not checked it out yet. Lance contained himself from running ahead of everyone. He wanted to see Keith, sure, but he also wanted to rub it in Keith’s face that he had found help first. He also wanted to see Keith get better. He noticed excitement bubbling in his stomach, actual hope. 

“You should go first,” Doc ordered once they had made it to the crash, “your friend will be less alarmed if you explain first.”

Lance nodded and made his way toward the escape pod’s door. He realized, once he was halfway there, that there was a good chance Doc didn’t know what a nod meant. He shook it off.

“Lance Sanchez that had better be you out there!” Keith voice came from inside. Lance’s heart sped up with excitement. “Where have you been? What the hell were you thinking leaving me alone like that? Did you find anything? You had better answer me, or-”

“It’s me Keith,” Lance called back, sticking his legs over the small ledge of disturbed ground. “And I did find something!” He reported proudly, dropping down.

“Oh thank god, Lance.” Keith sounded odd. “I didn’t know where you were. You scared the ever living shit out of me. I thought-” Almost like he was about to cry. “I thought you left for good, or you were dead. I don’t know, but don’t ever do that again.” 

Lance froze in his tracks. That wasn’t what he had expected Keith to say. 

“Keith, I found people living here.” So, Lance said what he had planned to say. “They’ve promised to help us.”

“Really?” Now Lance was on the other side of Keith’s chair, and he could see Keith. Keith, who was on the floor in front of the chair instead of on the chair, Keith who had reopened the wound on his leg when he was trying to move, Keith whose face was still obviously marked with tear tracks. Lance’s stomach contracted painfully.

“Yeah, their outside right now.” Lance offered awkwardly.

“And how are they going to feel about helping a Galra?” Keith asked, not making eye contact with Lance, whose stomach only hurt worse by the minute. Keith had a fair point.

“I don’t think they like the Galra much,” Lance admitted, “but I told them we’re paladins of Voltron. They seemed pretty excited by that.” Keith nodded noncommittally. “I’m going to call them in.”

And he did. They swarmed the pod, a few attending to Keith, a few attending to Lance, and a few looking at the control panels and tech around the pod. Doc approached Lance as one of the other’s bent his broken arm experimentally. Lance hissed in pain and did his best not to pull away.

“You are in better shape than your ship.” Doc commented. It almost seemed casual. Lance laughed.

“Guess I am.” He glanced nervously at Keith. There were two aliens working steadily on his leg, spreading a strange gel and clicking away to each other. The medics, with the exception of Doc, had not been given translators. Lance wondered if there was a short supply, or if there was another reason. “You guys don’t mind Keith.” He observed quietly.

“Keet?” Doc’s body tilted to the side curiously. “What would we ‘mind,’” he said the word as if it were strange, “about Keet?”

“He’s half Galra.” Lance decided to be blunt. His arm was being pulled in all directions, he was in pain, and he was exhausted. He didn’t have the energy to sugar coat things.

“Galran half breeds are common.” Doc shrugged, but when they saw Lance’s shock, continued. “You did not know this?” They asked slowly. Lance was starting to get tired of being talked down to by short lemon people like he was dumb. “The Galran Empire is expansive. Interbreeding isn’t an impossibility between similar races.” 

Lance’s mind hummed quietly. That made sense. Suddenly, he felt like an utter idiot. “Oh.” He sighed. “Of course.” Something in his arm popped painfully and he let out a yelp. He figured he deserved it. But, it seemed to give the medics the right idea, and they set to work setting and wrapping up Lance’s arm. 

He watched Keith quietly, feeling worse and worse. Sure, he had never treated Keith badly before he had been given a real reason, but the way the others had acted was almost enough to make Lance want to curl up and die of shame. 

Lance wanted to bang his head in frustration. What was it about Keith Kogane that made it so hard for him to sort out his feelings?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> idk if this chapter's any good, but at least it's not late, am i right?


End file.
